AGI eyeing expansion in China

Tycoon Andrew Tan is seeking opportunities to expand in Asia’s largest economy in the liquor and tourism segments as he joins President Duterte’s state visit to China next week.

Tan and son Kevin are set to join the business delegation accompanying Duterte to mainland China.

Tan heads Alliance Global Group Inc., which has interests in liquor production (Emperador Inc.), property development (Megaworld Corp.), integrated gaming resort (Travellers Hotel International Group Inc.) and fast-food (Golden Arches Development Corp., which holds the exclusive franchise to operate McDonalds’ restaurants in the Philippines.)

Recently, the group has invested in liquor and related assets in Europe.

“Emperador would like to bring its Philippine-made products and other brands to China,” Kevin Tan, executive director at AGI, said in a statement. “We are looking at expanding our distribution channels for Emperador and its other brands.”

“We are also looking into other business opportunities in China, particularly in the area of tourism,” the younger Tan said.

Emperador gained a foothold in Europe in 2013 with its acquisition of Bodega San Bruno S.A., a brandy company based in Jerez, Spain.
The Bodega deal included the San Bruno trademark as well as the vineyards, alongside a sizeable inventory of high-quality and well-matured brandy, now being stored and aged in sherry casks in the bodegas, or wineries. It afterwards acquired 409 hectares of additional vineyard in Madrid.

In early 2014, Emperador spent P3.7 billion to acquire a 50-percent stake in integrated brandy producer Bodega Las Copas S.L., a unit of Spain’s popular sherry bodega González Byass. Las Copas’ operations in brandy-making run the full scale with its vineyard near Toledo, its distillery plant in Tomelloso, Ciudad Real and its Las Copas brandy production premises all in Jerez. The 275-hectare specialized vineyard project of Bodega Las Copas near Toledo is the first of its kind in Spain to grow the finest grapes dedicated exclusively for brandy distillation and production.

Two years ago, Emperador also outbid a number of global powerhouses—French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, American liquor-maker Brown-Forman, Gruppo Campari of Italy and Russian billionaire Roustam Tariko to bag a £430-million deal to take over whisky-maker Whyte&Mackay.