THE company which plans to build a distillery on Inverclyde land with historic links to Robert the Bruce is looking to raise £17 million to fund its development.
The team behind Ardgowan Distillery have enlisted advisers at accountancy firm Campbell Dallas to assist the fundraiser, having already brought in more than £500,000 in seed capital.
It is anticipated that the £17m will cover the construction and commissioning of the distillery, as well as production costs for the first three years.
A mix of high net worth individuals, family offices, overseas investors and companies in the whisky supply chain are being courted, with the company noting that the distillery will be funded by a combination of equity, debt funding and some public money via the Food Processing Marketing and Cooperation grant scheme. With planning permission secured from Inverclyde Council earlier this month, the project to build the distillery and visitor centre on Ardgowan Estate is slated to begin later this year. It is hoped the distillery will be operational in 2019.
Ardgowan chairman Willie Phillips, a former managing director of The Macallan Distillers, said: “I think the Ardgowan Distillery is a terrific commercial proposition and Campbell Dallas is the right firm to assist us with this fundraising – they have a strong track record of advising on funding as well as an excellent understanding of the brewing and distilling sector.”
The fundraiser was announced shortly after Ardgowan unveiled a series of senior hires to occupy top roles. In February chief executive Martin McAdam was joined by former Bruichladdich and Springbank director Gordon Wright and ex-Hiram Walker distiller Michael Egan. Mr Phillips had joined before.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here