The Artisanal Spirits Company (ASC) announced on Friday that it expects both sales revenue and EBITDA to be lower than previous market expectations. Effectively the company is now on track to achieve our former FY2023 forecasts in FY2024. However, the underlying growth messages remain strong, supported by both membership growth and fresh strategic initiatives. While the FY2023 outcome is disappointing, our counter argument is that, given the long duration to maturity of the product, a year is but a brief period in Scotch malt whisky.
Despite its strength as a membership organization and substantial intrinsic value in relation to the maturing whisky mentioned above the ASC’s relative valuation is subject to a negative impact from international headwinds also being faced by its key distilled spirits and luxury brand owning peers. A 100p share price implies 3.8x EV/sales and a £70m market capitalisation.
We revise our fair value down from 150p a share to 100p, which still stands well above the current share price.
