Wine Company Analysis in “the New World” and “the Old World”

OF THESIS WINE COMPANY ANALYSIS IN “THE NEW WORLD” AND “THE OLD WORLD” There is a growing global market for wine. In our research, we mainly examine wine companies from four countries: France, Italy, the U.S. and China. Data used in this analysis comes from the 2010 to 2013 Plimsoll Top 500 report, focusing on wine companies’ financial performance. The primary goal is to identify which factors may have significant influence on the firms’ profitability. Two-way fixed effects panel data analysis indicates that the firm’s shareholders’ funds in total asset have significant and positive effect on companies’ yearly profit. The results suggest that four years could be a reasonable period for most wine companies to expand. Since wine companies considered in this study are from four countries, we also included the exchange rate of their currency in the analysis but they are not found to be significant. To the included companies, for firms in the old world, larger company sizes do not mean they have more market-share. Nevertheless, in new world countries, firm sizes may be an indicator that they may dominate the local market. In general, the number of the companies’ employees is not a significant factor to influence profit.