Less than one year after Republic National Distributing Company’s catastrophic collapse in California, VinePair has learned that the country’s second-largest wine and spirits wholesaler will sell a portion of its national operation to the country’s largest beer distributor: Reyes Beverage Group.
“[W]e have aligned with Reyes Beverage Group on key economic terms for them to acquire RNDC’s operations in Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C.,” wrote newly appointed president and chief executive officer Marc Sachs, in a Tuesday morning memo to RNDC employees shared with me by a current employee, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation by the firm. “Upon completion of the transaction, Reyes plans to run the newly acquired businesses separately from their current operations.”
RNDC did not immediately return requests for comment. Laurel Slick, RBG’s vice president of corporate affairs, confirmed the company was “in active discussions” with RNDC “regarding potential business transactions” in the states mentioned in Sachs’ note, but declined to elaborate. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Trade outlets Beer Business Daily and Shanken News Daily first reported RBG’s statement Tuesday morning. Sachs’ memo to RNDC employees suggests the transaction is much further along than discussion, even if it’s not quite done yet. “While there are still a number of steps we need to finalize the deal, I hope that you join me in recognizing this positive development,” he wrote. “In the meantime, it is business as usual.”
Rumors have swirled about the imminent break-up of RNDC’s vast middle-tier empire since before it officially confirmed VinePair’s scoop in early June 2025 that it planned its plan to retreat from California. Second only to Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits (SGWS) in volume of wine and spirits distributed, the firm has nevertheless struggled to compete against rivals — chiefly, SGWS, plus Breakthru Beverage Group (BBG) and RBG — that have more smoothly integrated their own acquisitions and transitioned to servicing higher-velocity “total beverage” demand.
Industry insiders date RNDC’s present malaise to early 2023, when The Sazerac Company pulled its business from its longtime wholesaler in an acrimonious dispute that resulted in litigation. Its outlook worsened dramatically in the first half of 2025, when the departure of Tito’s Handcraft Vodka in California triggered a broader brand exodus in the state that swelled to include Gallo’s High Noon, Anheuser-Busch’s Cutwater, and The Brown-Forman Corporation’s portfolio, among others. While RBG, BBG, and SGWS scooped up the brands RNDC shed in California, the ailing wholesaler hoped to retrench. But between the chaos of its Golden State withdrawal, departed suppliers’ structural and operational preference for middle-tier alignment, and the untimely death of its interim CEO, company man Bob Hendrickson, in October 2025, RNDC struggled to regain its footing.
Before RNDC even bailed on California, sources had begun contacting me with speculation that RBG would buy all or some of its operations. For the Constellation Brands-aligned mega-distributor, RNDC’s business represents a big opportunity to push further into full-bottle wine and spirits in more markets, as well as capture more of the economies of scale that come with being the country’s sixth-largest privately held company. But there’s risk, too, if not from the Trump administration’s lax antitrust enforcers, then from the fundamental challenge of integrating RNDC’s wobbly operations, beleaguered workforce, and freaked-out suppliers.
To that end, three RNDC-aligned suppliers of varying size in different states have told me that the wholesaler has not paid them on tens of thousands of dollars of overdue invoices, forcing at least one of them to tap a line of credit to cover their operational expenses. (I granted these sources anonymity to speak candidly about the situation without jeopardizing their business interests; they all still have inventory in RNDC warehouses.) On Monday, I obtained a memo purportedly sent by MHW Ltd., a longtime importer of wine and spirits based in New York, telling clients that it was “temporarily holding new PO requests from RNDC as they have become slower to pay and their responsiveness has declined to a point that is not acceptable.” In an emailed statement, the importer declined to address the memo directly, citing client confidentiality. “[W]e have always done business with RNDC and are not ceasing to do business with them,” wrote MHW’s Laura Baddish on Thursday afternoon. “In general, as a business selling products to thousands of customers every year, MHW has internal credit review processes that are mandatory and routine practice.”
Whether this is the last chunk of RNDC’s network to be sold off, or the first, remains to be seen. But Proximo Spirits’ decision last week to abandon RNDC in all but two franchise markets (Georgia and New Mexico) offers insight into which other distributors may eventually be buying. Per a statement from Jose Cuervo’s parent company provided to me by vice-president of media and communications Jennie Webb last week, the tequila giant’s portfolio will be distributed by BBG (Florida, South Carolina, Arizona, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.), Johnson Brothers (Texas, Hawaii, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, North Carolina, and Virginia), SGWS (Louisiana and Oklahoma), Superior Beverage Group (Ohio) and Great Lakes Wine & Spirits (Michigan).
This is a developing story and was last updated at 4:35 p.m. on January 13. It will be updated with more information as it becomes available. If you have tips to share about this deal, please submit them by emailing [email protected] or texting dinfontay.11 on Signal. You can remain anonymous.
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