The largest distiller of whisky in Australia, Top Shelf International, is raising $35 million to help build Australia’s first integrated agave spirit distillery at Airlie Beach in Queensland.

The offer will be fully underwritten by Canaccord Genuity and Shaw and Partners, who were also joint lead managers.

The raise was structured as a $9.3 million institutional placement and a one-for-3.1 accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer.

The deal was priced at $1.60, which was a 12.1 per cent discount to the last close.

Funds raised would be used for the new distillery, which was forecast to cost $18 million, and to expand its whisky and vodka retail footprint (10.5 million).

The production facility would have capacity to make 1.5 million bottles of Agave spirit a year, which would make Top Shelf the world’s largest distiller of agave spirit outside of Mexico.

In the US, tequila is on track to become the third-largest spirit category by 2024. After the US and Mexico, Australians are the third-largest consumers of tequila per person in the world.

Top Shelf has ex-LVMH President Trent Fraser running the agave project. In four years, Fraser built Volcan De Mi Tierra Tequila to be among the top 5 super premium tequila brands in the world.

Article source: AFR, 20 October 2021