Emperador sets P4 billion capex for 2025

MANILA, Philippines — Tycoon Andrew Tan’s global brandy and whisky conglomerate Emperador Inc. is spending P4 billion this year to support expansion initiatives as the company gears up for continued growth over the coming years.

The bulk of Emperador’s capital expenditures budget will go into its whisky business, primarily for the ongoing expansion of its Dalmore distillery in Scotland.

Emperador president and CEO Winston Co said the company’s Dalmore distillery expansion would be finished in the second half of the year.

“This is envisioned to double the brand’s production capacity while also providing a new visitor experience,” he said.

Emperador is also expanding its whisky maturation complex at its Invergordon distillery, doubling its footprint to 92 hectares from 45.4 hectares.

The expansion will enable the grain distillery to house an additional 1.5 million casks of maturing whisky.

“All this effort will ensure the capability of the whisky business to meet greater global demand for single malt and blended whiskies in the long term,” Co said.

During the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting yesterday, Co said that Emperador is “optimistic of the long-term view.”

“In fact, looking five years from today, we are very excited. We believe that the global business will continue to grow next year. And when we look at the five year horizon, we are very excited,” he said.

“We are excited because new opportunities have opened for us, an opportunity like China, opportunities like India, which we believe will propel the next cycle of growth. And because of this, we have expanded our Dalmore distillery and we have also improved all our distilleries in the UK,” Co said.

Co said the company is bullish on the future of the brandy, noting that it would remain to be very strong in the coming years.

Given the signals from the market, he said that Emperador expects to have a better year for the brandy business for 2025.

For the whisky business, meanwhile, Co said that there has been a slowdown across the world, with the market becoming very competitive.

“We believe, however, that this is cyclical. We believe that eventually the Scotch whisky business should return to growth, and we are hoping that by next year, starting 2026, there should be a resurgence and a rebound back to regular consumption,” he said.

Emperador, a publicly-listed company at both the Philippine Stock Exchange and the Singapore Exchange, owns Emperador Brandy, the world’s best-selling brandy.

Its portfolio of iconic brands also includes Fundador Brandy, The Dalmore, Fettercairn, Jura and Tamnavulin Single Malt Scotch whiskies.

The products are available in more than 100 countries across the globe.

Co said the company is working with its suppliers and distributors globally on ways how to mitigate inflation and the rising costs as an effect of the new tariff regime across the world.

“We get many questions about the US tariff policies recently, and it is very difficult to give a concrete answer, because the landscape keeps on changing and there are many moving parts. We operate on a global supply chain and so there are aspects that will be affected, and that may not be obvious on the onset,” he said.

During these challenging times, however, Co said that opportunities are also created.

He said Emperador continues to look at opportunities wherein the company can capitalize.

“And one of the opportunities that had happened recently is the lowering of the Scotch whisky taxes in India. The taxes actually came down by around 50 percent. So we expect a surge in the importation of Scotch whisky into India. And of course, it will not happen immediately as all the players are positioning to capitalize on this opportunity,” Co said.

Co said the company believes that more opportunities would open in the coming months and years amid the new tariff environment across the world.

Tan, on his end, said Emperador is excited on the path ahead, with the company continuing to provide the best drinks for its customers, deliver value to its stakeholders and build on the group’s time-honored heritage.

“As we look forward to the next milestone, our culture of innovation rooted in tradition and our shared ambition will continue to fuel our journey,” Tan said.