Allied Blenders & Distillers will acquire as many as four greenfield bottling plants and will set up a primary distillery unit in order to reduce dependence on outsourcing. The Kishore Chhabria Group company will also dilute a part of its stake through private equity investment before listing its shares on the stock exchanges.
The company, the metamorphosed form of BDA, a former subsidiary of Herbertsons, parted ways with the UB Group a few years ago as part of a settlement between Kishore Chhabria and Vijay Mallya. “We own only three units, and are outsourcing from about 25 units across the country. We want to cut down the cost by acquiring bottling plants in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal. We also want to set up a primary distillery unit, which will provide 20-25 % of spirits for our own use,” said Deepak Roy, executive vice-chairman and CEO of the company. Deepak Roy picked up 5% stake in ABD last year. ABD is pulling out all stops to take on its ally-turned-rival UB Group and others. The company will launch a premium rum, and a few other products to diversify the risk away from its single-brand, the iconic Officer’s Choice, which UB had once staked a claim for after it took over the original owner Shaw Wallace & Co.
Its iconic brand, Officer’s Choice sold about 6.85 million cases last year to emerge as the third largest whisky in the country. Roy expects the sales this year at 8.5 million cases. To mitigate the risk of a single brand, Roy is planning to expand the product portfolio. Plans are afoot to launch a premium dark rum with a price tag of around Rs 400 by year-end. Roy said, “We want to be the leader in premium dark rum segment,” said Roy who sets his first priority as strengthening the financials of the company.
ABD is also considering flavoured variants of its recently launched 87-year-old German vodka brand Wodka Gorbatschow. “We are planning flavoured variants of the vodka brand, but not in near future,” said Roy. ABD entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Henkell & Sohnlein Sektkellereien KG Wiesbaden, Germany, to launch Wodka Gorbatschow, among world’s top 15 premium vokdas, in India this month at a price of Rs 570 for 750 ml.