Emperador Inc, the largest liquor company of the Philippines, is poised for a secondary listing on the Singapore Exchange.
It received its conditional eligibility to list on Wednesday, according to Business World, a Philippines business publication.
The company was already reportedly mulling the secondary listing back in July last year, raising as much as $1 billion.
The company, which is also the world’s largest brandy manufacturer, is now quoted on the Philippines Stock Exchange.
Its controlling shareholder, holding some 84.57% of the shares, is the Alliance Global Group, which is led by tycoon Andrew Lim Tan.
The company’s share price last traded at 17.1 pesos, which values it at around $7 billion.
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For its 2QFY2021, the company reported revenue of 13.26 billion pesos, up 21.8% y-o-y. Earnings, meanwhile, was up around 96% y-o-y to 3.66 billion pesos, a record, although that's partly because of a one-off add-back of a tax expense.
Winston S. Co, the company’s CEO, describes this development as a “significant milestone” and that the impending SGX listing is an “affirmation of” the Emperador's "DNA as a truly global company".
“Furthermore, we believe that our entry into the SGX should pave the way for other Philippine companies with a global reach to list in the SGX, providing greater access to international investors,” he adds.
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Emperador owns brands such as the Emperador Brandy, Fundador, described as Spain’s oldest and largest brandy and sherry maker, as well as Whyte & Mackay, the world’s fifth-largest whisky maker.
Its products are sold in more than 100 countries worldwide.
