Core revenues from Edrington's portfolio of brands headlined by The Macallan single malt whisky have topped £1 billion for the first time.
Glasgow-headquartered Edrington also posted a 43% surge in pre-tax profits for the year to the end of March despite the decision to withdraw from its fourth-largest market, Russia, following the invasion of Ukraine. The privately-owned group also noted that while "the impact of Covid on the business appears to be largely behind us", it continued to act as a major suppressant of sales in China in the first half of the year.
Revenue growth outpaced the increase in volumes sold, reflecting a higher proportion of sales from the premium end of the portfolio that also includes Highland Park, The Glenrothes, the Famous Grouse blended whisky, and others.
The Macallan continued to lead the company’s performance, with high demand for products such as The Macallan James Bond Collection, The Red Collection 77-year-old, and The Macallan M series. This performance was helped by a mixture of pricing and a higher proportion of sales coming from more profitable markets.
READ MORE: The Macallan Scotch whisky owner in American Wyoming Whiskey move
The Glenrothes, Highland Park, and Naked Malt were also said to have performed well across key markets, growing the value of sales ahead of the increase in volume.
Chief executive Scott McCroskie said the business delivered a strong performance in almost every country where its products are sold, with "particularly strong sales in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the UK, Spain, the Dominican Republic and the USA".
“Our business has delivered another highly successful year, despite a range of external challenges," Mr McCroskie said. "Revenue from our spirit brands passed £1bn for the first time and core contribution increased by 25% from last year’s record result.
“This strong trading performance has allowed us to invest industry-leading sums behind our brands, our people and our operations, as well as funding a substantial buyback of shares."
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