The consortium is expected to value the brand, that created a cult following with its Men will be Men advertising campaign, at $350-$375 million or 15-18 times its FY24 Ebitda of $24-28 million. This is much lower than the premium valuation ask of $600-700 million (up to Rs 8,300 crore) that Pernod is said to have originally sought, largely on account of eroding margins and declining market share on the back of high input prices, said the people cited above.
TPG and Inbrew, which is led by serial entrepreneur Ravi S Deol, had submitted competing non-binding bids for the brand last year. ET was the first to report this October 28.
With annual sales of 270 million cases in 2024, India is the largest whiskey market in the world by volume. Most of the demand is met by local companies, many of which import scotch in bulk to blend with their own brands. Imperial Blue operates in the 72-million-case deluxe whiskey category, a bridge between the mass and premium segments. The deluxe segment accounts for more than a fourth of overall whiskey volumes.
New Delhi- and London-based Deol, a former Coca Cola executive, is best known in the Indian food and beverages industry for launching the country’s first national coffee chain Barista in the late 1990s before cashing out. In subsequent years, Barista got sold several times over by its various future owners such as the Tata Group, the Sterling Group and Italy’s Lavazza. Deol pivoted to alcohol beverages with Inbrew and has been on a buying spree since 2020.
