The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is having a bit of a topsy-turvy time during trading today. At the time of writing, the ASX 200 is down 0.18% to 7,341 points after playing jump rope with the break-even line all day so far. But the Digital Wine Ventures Ltd (ASX: DW8) share price isn't joining in the game.
Digital Wine shares are currently sitting at 9.1 cents a share. That's exactly where they ended up in yesterday's afternoon trading. And that's where they will be staying, at least for a while.
That's because Digital Wine announced it had requested a trading halt for DW8 shares just before market open this morning.
Unfortunately, that's pretty much all we know at this stage.
All the company said on the matter was the following:
Digital Wine Ventures Limited… requests an immediate trading halt over the company's securities pending the release of an announcement in relation to a material acquisition and capital raising. The trading halt is requested until the earlier of commencement of trading on Monday, 19 July 2021, or the company releasing the announcement.
So it looks as though Digital Wine is undertaking an acquisition, which will be (either partly or fully) funded by a capital raising program. We will have to wait for more information from the company before we know much more.
About the Digital Wine share price
Digital Wine Ventures is an online-only retailer of alcoholic beverages, primarily wine (as its name suggests). While dabbling in bulk wine production and processing, its primary business is selling wine in the growing Asian wine market.
Last month, the company caused quite a stir of excitement when it announced it had formed a partnership with the e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN).
This deal will involve Digital Wine using Amazon's logistic and payments infrastructure and will enable wine suppliers to more easily enter the Australian marketplace. Investors reacted very positively to this news at the time.
At the current Digital Wine share price, the company has a market capitalisation of $149.9 million. Digital Wine shares are currently up 127.5% year to date, and a whopping 203% over the past 12 months. However, the Digital Wine share price is also down almost 50% since early April.
