Amber Beverage Group has been moved to provide more details around the loan default outlined last month, stating that its deferral of payment is neither “selective or voluntary”.
In mid-February, the company, which owns the Moskovskaya vodka and Kah tequila brands, was notified by the trustee of holders of loan notes to the business that it was in default. The news prompted the commencement of negotiations between the trustee, CSC (Sweden) AB, and Amber.
The development followed the group’s placement of its Amber Latvijas balzams unit in Latvia into legal protection at the end of January, to allow operations to continue as normal while a restructure of its financial position was undertaken.
Late last week, Amber confirmed that no payment of the notes’ nominal value had been made to CSC (Sweden) AB, thereby breaching a 20-business-day notice condition served by the trustee. Linking the non-payment to the “serious financial difficulties” experienced by the Latvian unit, Amber also admitted it was in a “significantly worsened financial situation at the group level”.
The weakness of liquidity was tied to four further reasons:
- “geopolitical upheavals and the related sanctions and asset restrictions
- “a large-scale cyber attack [in September 2024] with significant financial consequences
- “the insolvency of the main client (Stoli USA) and the sharp decline in production volumes, and
- “the downturn in the global strong-alcoholic-beverages market.”
“Therefore,” Amber continued, “the non-fulfilment of both coupon and the extraordinary obligations principal payments is directly linked to the initiation of the [legal protection] process, the restrictions on Amber Latvijas balzams’ operational activities, and the significant deterioration in the group’s liquidity, rather than to selective or voluntary deferral of payments.”
Negotiations are continuing between the company and CSC (Sweden) AB.
Amber is part of the same business empire as Stoli Group, whose US division and Kentucky Owl American whiskey operations were declared bankrupt in mid-January.
