There's a fairly long, not so illustrious, history to Treasury. They were part of Fosters, the beer people. A few years ago the wine part was spun off as Treasury Wine Estates as they were the poorer performing part of the company. They own Chateau St. Jean, Beringer, and about 50 other brands covering four continents.
When first spun off I remember going to the new Treasury web site and finding their home page saying, "Treasury Wine Estates. One foot in the vineyard, one foot in the boardroom." Hmmm.
This appears to be a wine company not run by wine people. You know, the same thing that's gotten GM into trouble many times because they're a car company not run by car people.
Treasury had an excess of wine that sat around and went bad. The CEO decided to dump it and write it off rather than risk the reputation of the Treasury brands by selling it -- a smart long-term strategy. He was fired for it. Of course, it was a half-million cases of wine!
So if you like the corporate world and don't really care about wine so much there's a job opening at the top! Though it's really not clear what will happen with the company or their U.S. holdings now.
News Article
Update: Mr Dearie only made $2.4m last year with the drop in profits for Treasury's holdings. Of course, unemployment compensation will be a bit less.
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