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Bacardi has option to buy remaining stake in Teeling Whiskey for €29.8m, accounts show

Accounts for Teelco Investments Ltd indicate Bacardi paid €44.8m to buy tranche of shares in 2022 that took its shareholding in the Irish whiskey business to 79%

Stephen Teeling and his brother Jack Teeling, who set up Teeling Distillery in Dublin’s Liberties in 2012.

Barry J Whyte
Mon Apr 22 2024 - 06:00

Bacardi bought its latest tranche of shares in Dublin-based Teeling Whiskey for €44.8 million and holds an option to buy the remainder for €29.8 million, newly filed company accounts show.

The Teeling brothers, Jack and Stephen, are behind the whiskey distillery of the same name, which was founded in Dublin’s Liberties in 2012. They sold an initial 40 per cent stake to Bacardi in 2017.

Since then, Bacardi has increased that stake to 79 per cent after purchasing another tranche of shares in November 2022, though the value of the deal was not disclosed at the time.

However, recent accounts for a company called Teelco Investments Ltd, through which the brothers restructured their holding in the distillery in February 2023, show that at the start of the year certain “investments in subsidiary companies” were valued at €74.6 million.

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It noted that during the year it “subsequently . . . disposed of a portion of its interest in that entity, leaving a resulting investment in an associate entity”. It valued that investment in an “associate entity” at €29.8 million.

The accounts note that the “remaining associate interest is subject to the terms of a put and call option agreement with the same acquirer”.

The Teelings do not specify which entities they are referring to in the accounts, and declined to comment when asked by The Irish Times. However, it is likely a reference to the Bacardi transaction.

The accounts also show that Teelco controls one investment property worth €3.3 million, giving it total financial assets of €33.1 million.

The accounts show that the brothers have given themselves loans worth nearly €20 million from Teelco.

The company made an interest-free loan of €12.1 million to Maverick Irish Investments, a company controlled by Stephen Teeling, and it also made an interest-free loan of €14.2 million to Black Sheep Investments, a company controlled by Jack Teeling. The loans are repayable in full on maturity on March 1st 2033, according to the accounts.

Jack Teeling, who is managing director of the whiskey maker, is considered the ultimate controlling party of Teelco with a 53.99 per cent shareholding. Stephen Teeling, the sales and marketing director, holds the rest of the shares.

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