New supply chain facility progressing as planned

The Artisanal Spirits Company (ASC) continues to execute its plans to take advantage of the sizeable and fast-growing global premium whisky market, as detailed to investors at the time of its IPO in 2021.

ASC has announced today that good progress continues to be made in relation to the Group’s new multi-purpose supply chain facility at Masterton Bond, near Glasgow.   Masterton represents an important focal point of business expansion and efficiency improvement for the group and the steady progress of the project throughout the year should be welcomed by investors.

ASC’s stock-market valuation represents a discount on EV/sales ratio to both its publicly listed distilled spirits and luxury goods peer groups, which we regard as the most relevant comparators. In addition, the £455m notional value of the company’s whisky stock at retail is around 9 times the current market capitalisation of £50m. These analyses were detailed in our recent note ("Successfully following a clear route to growth") which followed a strong set of interim results from ASC.

We reiterate our 150p per share fair value, which on our estimates implies ratings of just 5.5x EV/sales in FY2022 and 4.1x sales in FY2024.