Emperador files papers for SGX listing

EMPERADOR Inc., the liquor company led by businessman Andrew Tan, on Thursday said it has filed the necessary application documents for its planned secondary listing on the main board of the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

The application is subject to the review and approval of SGX, the company said.

“This is a significant momentous event for Emperador. Singapore, one of the world’s major financial hubs, will provide a broader audience and greater access to international investors,” Emperador CEO Winston S. Co said.

“The eventual listing in Asia’s leading exchange will also provide a platform to showcase Emperador as a global spirits company,” he said.

The company will keep its primary listing in the Philippine Stock Exchange and Emperador’s stock will be traded at both the Philippine and Singaporean exchanges.

“This planned dual listing of Emperador in the Singapore Stock Exchange should prove to be a good way to promote the company’s global brands and products in an important, growing consumer market. This dual listing bodes well, and is in fact timely, since SGX and PSE have started to work on a joint initiative to establish a PSE-SGX Connect whereby index stocks of PSE can be traded in SGX and vice versa,” PSE Chairman Jose Pardo said in a statement.

Emperador started by selling cheap brandy bearing the company’s name, but over the years it has managed to acquire known European distilleries and vineyards.

It now owns United Kingdombased Whyte and mackay Group Ltd., the fifth largest Scotch whisky manufacturer in the world; Bodegas Fundador S.L.U in Spain, owner of the iconic Fundador brand; and Domecq Bodega Las Copas S.L., which manufactures mexican brandies and wines.

As of 2020, Emperador, the company’s brandy products held an 86.5-percent market share among all local and imported brandies in the Philippines based on volume, according to Nielsen Co.

With the pandemic, however, its domestic sales lagged due to a series of lockdowns and the liquor bans imposed by local government units. Its international sales picked up the slack.

For the first semester, its revenues from brandy grew 10 percent to P16.34 billion from last year’s P14.9 billion, while revenues from Scotch whisky rose 35 percent to P8.99 billion from the previous year’s P6.63 billion.