Whyte & Mackay in talks to sell off part company

European drinks major company, Whyte & Mackay, has said that the group does not plan to sell off the entire company and that it intends to exit from only the private label business. The company's private label business - Invergordon, which currently owns one of the largest grain-based distilleries, was put on the block for sometime now.

In a statement to foreign media, White& Mackay chairman and chief executive Vivian Imerman, has denied reports that the firm has been sold, but added that it has "received offers for part of the business".

Imerman said that the company is continuing to evaluate all strategic options, adding that it is in the middle of a BP 100 million investment programme and has great confidence that the business will perform well over the next five years.

According to sources, Invergordon, currently contributes about 20-25 per cent to the approximate BP 300 to BP 400 revenue of the group.

United Spirits, the spirit company of the Vijay Mallya promoted UB Group, had made a bid to acquire Invergordon, the private label scotch company of European drinks major Whyte & Mackay in June this year. The bid amount is learnt to be around Rs 1,800 crore (BP 200 million).

Located at Cromarty Firth in northern Scotland, the Invergordon distillery is the largest grain distillery in Europe. Whyte & Mackay had announced that it was selling the facility, in December last year, as it had decided to exit the private label business.

UB's bid for Invergordon was aimed at beating European Scotch maker's opposition to permit UB's molasses-based whiskey products and get a foothold of the European markets. Sources at UB had also denied reports about the acquisition of Whyte & Mackay as a whole.

According to industry sources, the world's second-largest drinks company Diageo and a couple of other European firms are also in the race for Invergordon. However, investment banking sources have learnt that UB's bid is the highest.

In the Scotch whiskey segment, United Spirits has its flagship brand - Black Dog in India. The company had also launched a low-cost variant of Black Dog Scotch whisky to expand its market to a larger consumer segment and the middle income group in particular. For the scotch business, Shaw Wallace (currently part of United Spirits) had been importing in bulk from Whyte & Mackay. Currently, none of the products from Invergordon is available in India.

If the deal comes through, it would also help United Spirits to launch some of these private label products from the UK company's portfolio in the Indian market, industry sources said.