New Vine Logistics situation gets murkier - Business First of Columbus:

http://www.7iwarforum.org/article/Adding-Cocoa-Beans-to-Your-Daily-Diet.html
“For us to disclose any information aboutthe buyer, New Vine’ws board would have to accep t or reject an offer,” New Vine spokeswomanh Charlotte Milan told the San Francisco Business Timeas , adding that no further informationb about New Vine’s negotiations with two or three potential buyers is likely to be available June 4. Late Wednesdaty and very earlyThursdat morning, informed sources told the Business Times that 1-800-Flowers.com appeare d set to win the sweepstakes to buy the broken piecees of New Vine, which startled the wine industry late last week by abruptly suspending operations.
As of early Thursdagy morning, an announcement of a deal with 1-800-Flowers, which owns the Wine Tastingb Network Servicesshipping company, appeared to be imminent. But that deal broke down sometime in thewee hours, leavingv New Vine’s future uncertain. Wine Tasting Network, accordinyg to its LinkedIn profile, provides wineru and wine club direct marketing as well as fulfillmentand e-commerc e services to wineries and wine Officials at WTN did not immediately respond to requestz for comment, but many in the industry see WTN as the most logica player to pick up some of New Vine’s New Vine, which two yearsz ago seemed poised to ship 20 perceny of California’s direct-to-consumer wine market, laid off much of its stafr on Friday and brusquely told customers over the weekend that it was no longedr receiving or processing orders.
The move left many Wine Countrh providers scrambling to gather information and to figure out how to get back inventory atNew Vine’ s American Canyon warehouse so they could ship it to customers anothef way. Published accounts said some ofthe company’s venturee capital investors effectively pulled the plug last week, by declininy to invest additional capital in New “Some people changed their minds at the last minute,” said Barbaraz Insel, a wine industry analyst who has server on New Vine’s advisory board.
Kathleen Hoertkorn, New Vine founder and former CEO, and Chairman of the Boars Homer Dunn said Tuesday that New Vine is workingy withcustomers “to transfer all servicexs to another means of legal direct shipping, and in the is finalizing all work, including compiling of reports, reconciling inventoryy and invoices, and performing all of the necessary businesz operations for the monthu (sic) of May and June.” Hoertkorm added, in response to reports that the company knew or must have knowj it was in financial trouble, that officialsz “truly believed that they would have been funded and were not expectinfg to have to cease operations.
” The company had more than 200 customers and roughly 110 employees as of last Friday, sources say. It now has a skeletonb crew of about 30 staffere at its Napa headquarters and American Canyonshippinhg facility, including a handful of executives who are workingg to wind down operations. New Vine was startecd in 2001 on the notion that it could help expediter shipments to consumers in varioua states with confusing and complicaterd legal restrictions onwine shipments, a lingering legacy of the Prohibition years in America.
Financial backersd include Menlo Park’s , Altos Ventures, and San Francisco’sz LLC, which reportedly pulled its peopled out ofNew Vine’s offices late last