HAVING given 23 years of his career to Inver House Distillers, some whisky industry observers may be surprised to read that managing director Graham Stevenson is bound for pastures new.

Mr Stevenson steered the company through some big changes after joining from North British Distillery Company in 1994, most notably its acquisition by Thailand’s International Beverage Holdings in 2001.

That the new custodians have since allowed Mr Stevenson and his team to pretty much get on with the day job arguably owes much to the accountant’s innate understanding of the sector, especially when you consider the Thai owners have also sanctioned millions of pounds of investment in stocks, warehouses and distilleries.

In these circumstances, it was perhaps only going to be a special opportunity that was going to prise Mr Stevenson from Inver House.

And that would seem to be the case in his decision to team up with Billy Walker and Trisha Savage to acquire the Glenallachie Distillery from Pernod Ricard. With Glenallachie, the trio have the chance to build a little-known Speyside distillery into an exciting new force in an industry where entry costs are prohibitively high. This observer would not back against them repeating the success Mr Walker had at BenRiach, which he sold last year to Brown Forman for £285 million.

At Inver House, meanwhile, the future looks to be in safe hands with the appointment of operations director Martin Leonard as Mr Stevenson’s successor.