on the future Cooley

[Fionnán]

or, the distillery formerly known as Cooley... If Diageo or Pernod buy beam, would they be likely to keep "The Kilbeggan Distilling Company" going as they already have their own irish whiskeys?


http://www.just-drinks.com/analysis/ana ... 11169.aspx

[DavidH]

We could split that into two questions:
- would multinational X want to keep Cooley?
- would multinational X be allowed to keep Cooley by competition authorities?

Diageo's ownership of Bushmills has been so lacklustre that I can't see them wanting more brands. They have been very enthusiastically chasing spirit brands in non-Western countries and I believe that is where they see their future growth coming from. They have the Irish whiskey box ticked, just in case.

Pernod already has a great stable of Irish whiskey brands and they have barely begun to exploit Powers and Paddy internationally. Would they want an Irish single malt? I think having created a global market for Irish whiskey they ought to be confident they can follow through by building a profile for single pot still. So I'm guessing they won't want it either.

I find it harder to call the competition question, given the new distilleries coming on stream. But in my own opinion it would be an unwelcome consolidation in a small market that has just begun to grow. These new ventures are highly risky and a future competitive climate is not yet guaranteed.

[Fionnán]

As i see it, the big attraction to buying Beam is the Beam distillery itself (and of course Laphroaig)-- Bourbon is booming in the states and the Beam distillery have both a top selling bottom-shelfer in "Jim Beam" and a range of highly regarded small batch bourbons including the much beloved Booker's. Diageo have a bourbon in "Bulleit" but no distillery for it and its largely a concocted brand sourced from elsewhere. There've been rumblings of them either buying Beam are restarting the Stizel-Weller distillery (which, of course, they closed to begin with). It seems to me that those two options are mutually exclusive from a practical standpoint. They dont need Laphraoig as they already own Lagavulin, Caol Ila, and even Port Ellen Maltings and, as you mentioned David, they dont really need anything Cooley has to offer. Their stewardship of bushmills is a strange case. They've poured money into billboards across the states with endorsements from well known 'hip' personalities like Chromeo and Bon Iver in their 'since way back' campaign and, when i worked for them, i was told Bushmills was the largest whiskey advertising budget. It's only on the product front (and of course their non-existent domestic presence) that they just dont seem to be interested ...