By Karen Peattie
WHISKY veteran Billy Walker’s GlenAllachie Distillery is poised for growth after securing a £30 million loan from Clydesdale Bank.
One of Scotland’s most high-profile distillers, Mr Walker said that the asset-based lending package from the bank will be used to fund working capital and capital expenditure as GlenAllachie continues to develop its brand around the world.
Belfast-based boutique corporate finance specialist HNH’s new Scottish team played a pivotal role in securing the funding for the award-winning Scotch whisky company.
GlenAllachie, winner of the Scottish Whisky Distillery of the Year award at The Scottish Whisky Awards, and a significant volume of mature whisky was acquired from Chivas by Mr Walker and his team in 2017.
Located near Aberlour in Speyside, the business has quickly earned a reputation as a producer of premium single malt whisky. Its award-winning products include GlenAllachie’s core range of aged single malts and the richly peated blended malt, MacNair’s Lum Reek.
Mr Walker, managing director of GlenAllachie, said: “This new debt facility will enable us to continue our journey at the pace we want and further develop GlenAllachie as a premium single malt brand around the world.
“It means we can look forward with confidence for the next four years with quick access to money if parcels of whisky that capture our attention come up – we can act quickly to acquire them.”
Meanwhile, the well-known White Heather brand, also owned by GlenAllachie, will be relaunched in May. “This was a very important brand,” said Mr Walker. “We’re revitalising it and bringing it back as a top-end, premium blended Scotch whisky.”
GlenAllachie also expects to make its debut in the burgeoning rum market towards the end of this summer. Mr Walker, whose family sold the BenRiach Distillery Company for £285m in 2016, told The Herald late last year that the business planned to release a series of rums under its MacNair’s brand and yesterday revealed: “We’ve done a lot of preparation work in terms of where we want to be with the rum opportunity,” he said.
“There will be a seven-year-old rum and also a 15-year-old one coming to market this summer – there will be one with a peated twist which is unusual in that it is unconventional. Actually, it’s spectacular.
“We believe there is an awakening around rum and we want to be part of an experience that’s really interesting.”
GlenAllachie appointed Bruce Walker, a director of HNH’s Edinburgh team, to lead the refinancing exercise. The Scottish office of HNH was established last year to advise SMEs and family-owned firms during mergers and acquisitions, debt, and transaction services.
HNH’s Walker added: “This deal is a great result for GlenAllachie and the outcome of a competitive process led locally by the HNH team.
"We were delighted to work with such a high-quality asset with an outstanding management team with a crystal-clear strategic vision. It was also good to work again with Clydesdale Bank who were able to deliver a compelling proposal based on their clear understanding of the sector and strong existing relationship with the GlenAllachie team.
“Appetite for the credit was strong, reflecting the strength of both the business and the whisky market more widely.”
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