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Global spirits company Amber Beverage Group (ABG) has seen impressive results in the first half of 2020 despite challenges resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. The company’s total EBITDA has grown by 8% and the majority of ABG’s markets worldwide have seen sales figures outperform their forecasts.
Jekaterina Stuģe, CFO, Amber Beverage Group says: “Despite the challenges we have faced this year, we are pleased that our total Group revenues for the first half of 2020 present a strong performance compared to last year. Our EBITDA has grown by 8% due to effective cost management, streamlining internal processes and a quick introduction of new brands. The double-digit growth in production (+18% vs budget forecasts and +6% vs last year) kept our employees busy all around the world – in Russia, Mexico and the Baltic States.”
“June in particular showed notable signs of revenue recovery in the Baltics and APAC regions, whilst July demonstrated hope that the UK market will start to re-open. Even though business in the EMEA region remains challenging, the excellent results and revenue obtained at the end of July promise good signs of recovery in the coming months.”
Amber Beverage Group’s sales in the US have performed exceptionally well throughout 2020, with repeated KAH® Tequila case orders throughout July. New importers have also been confirmed for three of Amber Beverage Groups’ core brands in the US including Blue Spirits Imports for Moskovskaya® Vodka, Pacific Edge for KAH® Tequila and Espiritus for Riga Black Balsam®. Amber Beverage Group-owned Fabrica de Tequila Finos has also had an excellent month with strong demand for American singer and songwriter Nick Jonas’ Villa One Tequila.
Amber Beverage Groups’ Australian distributor, Think Spirits, continues to strike great sales deals despite the state of Victoria entering lockdown for a third time due to Covid-19. The on-trade in Australia is also slowly recovering, delivering stronger results in July than in previous months. The same is true of the on-trade in the UK, with sales rebounding slowly in July, but the majority of volumes are still coming from the grocery channels and online. UK distributor, Cellar Trends’, sales reported that Faustino Wine drove the majority of volumes, with Tesco being the largest customer.
Amber Beverage Groups’ EMEIA division has also seen impressive growth in recent months with several key markets outperforming forecasts. For example, in Ukraine, Moskovskaya® Vodka sales grew by 83% and the world’s oldest bitter, Riga Black Balsam®, grew by 86% vs last year. Italy is also showing great results with Moskovskaya’s sales growing in June by 11% vs last year and next months’ forecasts are showing even bigger growth potential.
ABG’s sales in the Baltics have performed outstandingly well throughout the first part of the year, overachieving all targets with a year to date growth of 14%. All ABG-owned Baltic distributors have shown excellent results driving sales through the off-trade, the relaunching of the on-trade and cost optimisation.
Seymour Ferreira, CEO, Amber Beverage Group says: “We responded very quickly to the Covid-19 crisis by working hard to manage our costs and our core business through expanding our e-commerce significantly and introducing innovative online activities for our core brands, which proved to be very successful. We have been focusing our attention on delivering exceptional performance in the off premise and gaining increased distribution and secondary displays; getting every detail right has paid off.”
“We are very pleased with how all of our brands and businesses have been performing in recent months and look forward to achieving further growth over the coming year. I would like to extend my thanks to all our colleagues and partners across the world who have been at the core of these great results.”
Amber Beverage Group is a holding company that has grown from its original core production business established in 1900, to become the global company that unites over 2,000 employees in almost 20 companies across four continents. ABG operates internationally from head office in Luxembourg through its production and distribution companies in Russia, Mexico, UK, Australia, Austria and the Baltics. It is a leading producer, distributor, logistic provider and retailer of alcoholic beverages.