The owner of the Stoli vodka brand has declared its US division, as well as the Kentucky Owl American whiskey business, as bankrupt, ending a year-long battle to save the pair.
In November 2024, Luxembourg-headquartered Stoli Group, owned by Russian businessman Yuri Shefler, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Stoli Group USA and Kentucky Owl. The voluntary submission, which CEO Chris Caldwell told Global Drinks Intel at the time would “enable us to conduct the financial restructuring required”, has been followed this week by the move to Chapter 7, meaning the operations will be the subject of a liquidation process.
The company, which provided assurances that the rest of its operations both outside of and inside the US “continue to operate normally”, linked the matter to a combination of “geopolitical shocks, combined with a slowdown in the US spirits market and a lack of support and flexibility from the group’s finance partners”.
“For more than 25 years, Stoli Group has been engaged in protracted legal disputes with the Russian state over brand ownership and control,” the brand owner said. “Those pressures intensified sharply in recent years. After the company publicly condemned the invasion of Ukraine and voiced its support for peace, the Russian government designated Stoli an ‘extremist organisation’ in Russia.
“This was swiftly followed by the confiscation and nationalisation of Stoli’s state-of-the-art distillery, an asset integral to the company’s global production footprint. Soon afterward, Stoli was hit by a large-scale, sophisticated cyberattack that targeted its international operations and impaired systems vital to global distribution.
“Remediation efforts continue to this day.”
As well as Kentucky Owl, which was acquired in 2017, Stoli Group added US-based alcohol-free brand The Pathfinder Hemp & Root to its portfolio almost three years ago.
