Foster’s May Write Down A$700 Million on Wine, Australian Says

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Foster’s Group Ltd. may be forced to write down the value of its wine unit by another A$700 million ($463 million) when it releases the results of a strategic review, the Australian reported, citing Goldman Sachs JBWere Pty.

Foster’s reduced the value in its accounts of its intangible wine assets by A$471 million in August and reallocated A$575 million of goodwill from the A$3.2 billion purchase of Southcorp in 2005 to its beer unit, the newspaper said.

The company still holds A$2.2 billion of wine-related intangible assets on its balance sheet and could be set to announce another writedown, it said, citing Goldman Sachs JBWere analyst Ian Abbott.