Artisanal Spirits Company, owner of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS), Single Cask Nation (SCN) & J.G. Thomson, said it delivered EBITDA of £1.1 million — “a record performance which was slightly ahead of market expectations” — for the year ended December 31, 2024.
“In challenging economic conditions, the group has shown strong resilience to deliver profitable growth and cash generation, which, alongside its strong asset base of cask spirit, gives us continued confidence to meet our future strategic and financial goals,” said the company.
Artisanal reported over 18,000 casks in stock, independently valued in July 2024 at £102 million, and marginal revenue growth of 0.4% to £23.6 million.
Loss before tax was reduced to £3.1 million from £3.6million, with profit growth offset partially by increased interest costs.
The firm reported membership growth of 4% to 42,700 with Europe supported by notable UK growth of 10% and the Asian region led by China (+24%) and a recently added Korea franchise (+59%).
On current trading, the company said: “The start to the year has been strong, with achievement of double-digit revenue growth in Q1-25 vs Q1-24 …
“Revenue growth led by bottle sales in Europe, supported by further success of the new Creators Collection range, as well as early success on delivering against full year cask sales targets …
“In January 2025, we completed the investment in the SMWS America (SMWSA) business, resulting in ability to take a greater proportion of the value chain from full control of membership and marketing services. Year on year profitability improvement in Q1-25 has more than offset this previously announced one-off £0.5m investment in SMWS America (SMWSA) …”
Artisanal Spirits Company CEO Andrew Dane said: “Our ambition remains to create a high quality, highly profitable and cash generative, premium global business and we made good progress on achieving this during FY24, despite a backdrop of uncertain economic conditions in some markets.
“We have delivered profitable growth, helped by our successful acquisition of US based Single Cask Nation in January 2024 and the additional investment in our SMWS USA operations completed in January 2025 also further augments the exciting opportunity for ASC to deliver profitable growth in this key market.
“We continue to have an outstanding asset backing, with the current cask inventory value of just over £100m representing around 4x both NBV and Net Debt. We have now made the important transition of only acquiring stock on a replenishment basis, and this continues to increase the positive future cash profile of the business which is encouraging.
“Overall, we exit FY24 with a good set of results behind us, with a positive start to Q1-25 meaning that we are on track to deliver further profitable growth and cash generation in FY25 and beyond.”