Heard of the ubiquitous “blue-light special” in sales departments? Vintage Wine Estates is in the midst of a rosé-light special—as a Delaware bankruptcy court this month gave the go- ahead for the Santa Rosa-based wine portfolio’s auctioning of millions of dollars in assets as part of its corporate restructuring. The court approved sales from a Sept. 17 auction, which saw Vintage move about $140 million in assets. Vintage Wine Estates—the parent company of such brands as BR Cohn, Girard and Kunde— announced in July its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure to address its debt obligations and begin selling off its assets. Vintage Wine Estates framed its outstanding debt as around $400 million, with assets of about $425 million. The company plans to sell about two dozen wineries, among other brands and assets. Among the bids for local and regional brands approved by the court were Clos Pegase and Girard wineries in Napa County, and BR Cohn, Kunde and Viansa wineries in Sonoma Valley, which went for $85 million to Dallas-based Adair Winery. Sonoma Coast Vineyards, Cosentino, Swanson, Bar Dog and Cherry Pie went to Foley Family Wines for $15 million. Additionally, California Cider Co., maker of Ace Cider in Sebastopol, went to Cider Leasing LLC for $7.63 million— JW Sold! Vintage Wine Estates auctioning begins
Vintage Wine Estates auctioned about $140 million in assets.
Sonoma County employees OK’d to create some content using ChatGPT
As part of a new policy regulating county employees’ use of artificial intelligence, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved guidelines to protect sensitive data and ensure AI usage complies with legal standards. The policy allows county employees to use certain generative AI products, such as ChatGPT, for tasks such as creating and editing emails and letters, sales and advertising materials, spreadsheet calculations, coding development or debugging, summarizing information and drafting policies, job descriptions, memoranda and similar documents. “We are on the cusp of the artificial intelligence revolution, and we understand the opportunities we have to harness this technology to realize efficiency and cost-savings for the public,” said Supervisor David Rabbitt, chair of the Board of Supervisors. However, continued Rabbitt, “there is a lot that we still don’t know about AI,” and the county should cautiously proceed “in a secure and ethical manner.” The guidelines require users to review and fact-check any output from AI technologies and to be transparent when content is drafted using AI technologies, according to a county announcement about the policy. The policy prohibits users from submitting personal or confidential information into AI technologies. “One of the key features of AI is its ability to memorize and learn from the information and data that is shared with it so, when AI has access to county data, even self- contained AI technologies that run on county-owned and -managed systems, it may share the sensitive data that was used to train it with others,” the announcement continued.— JW
County staff can now officially utilize AI.
October 2024
NorthBaybiz 13
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