THE tequila company co-founded by Hollywood star George Clooney has been acquired by Diageo in a deal that values the business at $1 billion, writes Scott Wright.
Scotland’s biggest Scotch whisky distiller will pay an initial $700 million for Casamigos, with the potential for a further $300m based on a performance linked earn-out over 10 years.
The deal comes just four years after Clooney created the company, whose names translates as “house of friends” with Rande Gerber and Mike Meldman.
Since then the brand has won numerous awards and achieved rapid sales growth. Case sales are on track to reach more than 170,000 by the end of this year, after hitting 120,000 in 2106.
Diageo said acquiring Casamigos gives the drinks giant a presence in the fast-growing “super-premium” tequila market.
And it noted Clooney and the brand’s other co-founders will continue to promote Casamigos and “provide their leadership and vision” further to the deal.
Diageo chief executive Ivan Menezes said the company plans to “expand the reach of Casamigos to markets beyond the US to capitalise on the significant international potential of the brand. “
Mr Menezes added: “We look forward to building on the remarkable success of Casamigos to date.”
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