Oaktree mulls selling Stock Spirits Group for over $1 billion
14 Jan 2011
US-based private equity firm, Oaktree Capital Management is planning to sell Stock Spirits Group (SSG), one of the fastest growing spirits companies in Central Europe, through an auction to be held this month.
Cting two people familiar with the matter, Reuters had reported yesterday that Los Angeles-based Oaktree had not definitively decided to sell the $1-billion plus spirits company, but is also mulling an initial public offering (IPO) of UK-based Stock Spirits.
The Sunday Telegraph had reported in October that Oaktree had hired former Kraft Foods chairman Jack Keenan to choose advisers for a proposed €1 billion ($1.4 billion) IPO for SSG in early 2011 in London.
A month later, SSG was reported to have hired Credit Suisse to advise it on "future strategic options."
Reuters said that interested buyers could be buyout firms with regional or sector experience such as Advent International, CVC Capital Partners, TPG Capital, Warburg Pincus and Lion Capital.
SSG was established in 2007 from the merger of Stock and Polmos Lublin, which was acquired by Oaktree from Eckes Stock.
Both Stock and Polmos Lublin have a history dating back to the early 19th century, in what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
SSG sells almost 40 brands of vodka, brandy, and liqueur in Central and Eastern Europe and the US. Vodka brands include Czysta de Luxe, Kegelvich, Orzel, and Poland's most popular brand, Wodka Zoladkowa Gorzka. It also sells brandy and vermouth, while Limonc limoncello and the orange liqueur GranGala are its popular liqueurs.
SSG has distilleries in the Czech Republic, Italy, and Poland, and distributes its brands in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the UK. In the US it does business as Heritage Brands, Inc.