More than 70 would-be buyers will be invited to bid for Waterford Whisky, the distillery business founded by Mark Reynier, a veteran of the industry.
The sales process is being handled by Mark Degnan and Daryll McKenna of Interpath Advisory, the company’s joint receivers, who aim to sell the business as a going concern rather than break up the company and sell the distillery and stocks separately.
No guide price has been set but the company’s assets, including the stock and distillery, are thought to be worth over €100 million.
It is expected that a data room will be opened tomorrow but the receivers have already had more than 70 inquiries from interested parties. This list is likely to be whittled down over the next few weeks.
Interpath is hopeful that a transaction could close by the end of March.
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Waterford Whisky went into receivership in November after its management failed to raise fresh funding following weeks of effort by the company and its main lender, HSBC, to turn the business around. A memo seen by The Sunday Times states that any future acquirer would be able to begin distilling immediately after buying the business.
As well as distilling operations, the note says that the distillery site, a former Diageo brewery, could be expanded with room for a bottling facility, or turned into a tourist attraction to run distillery tours.
The company behind the distillery, Spirit of Waterford Distillery, owns the site and has 6.9 million litres of whiskey in stock, the oldest of which is nearly nine years old. It also has 192,000 items of bottled stock across its different brands.
Waterford Whisky was founded by Mark Reynier, a former wine seller who revived the Scotch brand Bruichladdich, based in the isle of Islay.
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