Suntory Global Spirits (SGS), as the unit will be known henceforth, will continue to oversee all of its parent’s spirits operations along with the brands and assets from Beam Inc when it was bought a decade ago. The rebranding exercise has been designed to “help the company drive value as one global team and focus on key priorities including American whiskey, Japanese spirits, scotch, tequila and Ready-To-Drink, while providing flexibility for growth in the future”, SGS said today.
“Now is the right moment to … fully unlock our unified advantage across our leading spirits portfolio,” said Suntory Holdings’ CEO & SGS chair, Tak Niinami. “Since the acquisition of Beam Inc in 2014, the company has gone through an incredible transformation to become an even stronger organisation … . We’re grateful to the entire global team under (CEO) Greg Hughes’ leadership as we continue to … grow the trust and love that people have for Suntory around the world.”
As well as the Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark American whiskey brands, alongside Bowmore and Laphroaig in scotch, SGS, which has its headquarters in New York, also looks after the Hibiki and Yamazaki Japanese whisky marks. Due to being part of a privately-held group, the company is not obliged to detail its results but said today its annual sales – which were up in 2023 by 7% year-on-year – total around US$5.5bn.
Of its peers, Brown-Forman’s annual sales total in the region of $4.26bn, with Moët Hennessy at $7.16bn.
