FRENCH-owned Scotch whisky producer Chivas Brothers paid dividends of more than £90 million to its parent company in its last financial year, its annual accounts have revealed.
On January 3, 2013 Chivas paid a £56.8m dividend to its immediate parent Acorn. It followed this up with monthly dividends totalling £34.3m over the remainder of the financial year to June 30.
In the 2012 financial year, it had paid out £23.6m of dividends.
The move came after a restructuring of Pernod Ricard's operations in Scotland, which saw Chivas acquire the trade, assets and liabilities of sister company Allied Domecq Spirits and Wine.
Under the deal, Chivas - home to the group's flagship Scotch whisky brand Chivas Regal - is paying Allied Domecq to use brands such as Ballantine's Finest, Ballantine's Aged Range and Beefeater Gin.
The royalty payments contributed to a rise in administration expenses to £205m for the 2013 financial year, up from £95m during 2012.
Chivas also received a £200m dividend from Allied Domecq in November 2012
The restructuring comes nine years after Pernod Ricard and Fortune Brands acquired Allied Domecq in a £7.4bn deal and divided up the business.
Chivas's directors said its results for the year were in line with expectations.
A 62% rise in turnover to £988.6m, and an increase in pre-tax profit to £500m, from £201.9m in 2012, were ascribed to the transaction with Allied Domecq.
The board of Chivas Brothers said: "The directors are satisfied with the current trading performance of the company.
"They remain optimistic for the future having considered market forecasts and social tends.
Chivas ploughed £60.5m into its pension scheme in a one-off payment taking its contributions to £72.2m for the year.
It expects to contribute £9.4m in the current financial year.
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 hereComments are closed on this article