Tycoon Andrew Tan’s Emperador Inc., a global brandy and whisky conglomerate, has allocated P6.5 billion for capital expenditures in 2024, slightly lower than the P7 billion earmarked last year, even as it hopes to improve its performance further this year.

During the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, Emperador President Winston Co said that the “bulk of the capex will be for the company’s whisky business, particularly for the Dalmore distillery expansion, which will be completed in the latter half of 2024. The expansion will double the capacity of the current Dalmore distillery.”

Emperador owns Emperador Brandy, the world’s best-selling brandy, while its portfolio also includes Fundador Brandy, The Dalmore, Fettercairn, Jura, and Tamnavulin Single Malt Scotch whiskies. 

“The company has also started expanding the maturation complex in Invergordon, building more warehouses for whisky aging to house the additional liquid to be produced by the larger Dalmore distillery,” he added.

Aside from capacity expansion, Co said the capex will also partly fund Whyte and Mackay’s sustainability goal to be carbon neutral by 2030. 

Distillery upgrades will be made to make operations more efficient and sustainable. Among Whyte and Mackay’s sustainability projects are an anaerobic digestion bioenergy center and a biomass boiler system.

Meanwhile, the brandy business will utilize a small portion of the capex for upgrades in machinery and equipment to facilitate more efficient operations.

“We believe that, this year, we will continue to perform hopefully better than last year, and we do look at the horizon for the next five years. We excited of the prospect because we believe that there will be a rebound in consumer spending, particularly so on the super luxury category,” said Co.

He added that “our products, our whiskey, are very well placed. Three of our brands, The Dalmore, Jura and Tamnavulin are in the top global 15 largest selling brand by volume. So, we are very excited about the future and confident that we will continue to grow.”

Co noted that The Dalmore expansion will allow them to double their capacity to “be able to meet future requirements for the year 2035 to 2036 and beyond.”

For its Philippine brandy business, Co said Emperador plans to further premiumize its portfolio because local consumers are premiumizing—preferring better and higher-priced products.

“We're excited about the fact that, with the improving Philippine economy, as we move forward to three, four years or even five years from today, I think that theconsumption landscape will change significantly,” said Co. 

He explained that “the premium segment will grow exponentially and we are positioned to capture that particular growth… At the same time, we will introduce whiskey at that particular price point to capture this growing middle class.”