Craft brewer orders a new funds round

BREWDOG, one of Britain’s biggest craft brewers, is likely to raise fresh funds from investors this year to fuel its expansion.

Speaking to the Financial Sunday Express, co-founder and chief executive James Watt said that he believes the firm will hold its sixth crowdfunding round later this year. The proceeds would be used to open new bars in Asia, the US, UK and Europe.

Since 2009, Brewdog has raised more than £67million from 96,000 small investors through five Equity For Punks crowdfunding rounds to fund its expansion.

Watt said: “There’s a very good chance that we’ll do Equity For Punks 6 this year. We’re competing against the likes of AB InBev (the owner of Beck’s, Budweiser, Corona and other brands) so we’ll need capital to get to scale and help us build communities.”

Additionally he said that the firm’s long-awaited stock market flotation or initial public offering is unlikely to take place in 2019, due to market volatility: “We’re not sure the market is stable enough, so we don’t think it’s going to be this year.”

Brewdog is being advised on its potential IPO by bankers from Rothschild and accountants at PWC.

In 2017 Brewdog sold a 22 per cent stake to private equity group TSG Consumer Partners, in a deal that valued the craft brewer at more than £1billion. TSG and Brewdog’s crowdfunding investors own more than a third of the company.

Additionally, Watt said that the firm is close to signing a joint venture agreement with a Chinese group to build a brewery in the country.

Brewdog’s Chinese brewery would be used to supply markets in Asia, where it is keen to expand both its number of bars and trade sales. The agreement should be in place by the end of the first half of the year.

Co-founder Martin Dickie said that the Scottish craft brewer is hoping to release its first whisky towards the end of this year.