Stock Spirits Group loses majority shareholder

Investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, majority shareholder of Stock Spirits Group, has sold its entire 36.8% stake in the company.

The majority shareholder of Stock Spirits Group has sold its entire stake in the company

A statement released by Stock Spirits – a UK-headquartered spirits producer and distributor, which operates primarily in Central and Eastern Europe – claimed that Oaktree Capital had executed an agreement “for the disposal of their entire shareholding in the company”, consisting of 73,665,895 ordinary shares.

These shares have now been passed over to institutional investors, while Karim Khairallah, of Oaktree Capital, has stepped down from the board of Stock Spirits.

Last month, the group reported that it had seen its profits plummet in 2013 after entering the London stock market in October last year, predominantly due to costs associated with its IPO.

Stock Spirits had made the decision to offer a quarter of its shares in a bid to raise £52million.

Oaktree Capital Management, along with other company management, offered shares in Stock Spirits’ IPO, though they remained the majority shareholders.

Stock Spirits is the largest spirits group and leading vodka producer in Poland and the Czech Republic, which account for 60% and 19% respectively of its total annual revenue. It has a range of spirits across more than 25 different brands of which six sell more than one million cases annually.

Oaktree Capital had looked into selling the company in 2011, with rumours of a possible deal with Diageo circulating. However in February last year, Heath told The Spirits Business that Oaktree has “deliberately invested to create a company that has sustainability and potential for growth in the future”.