Castle Brands reports ‘outstanding’ Q2 results

Castle Brands reported an “outstanding” net sales increase of 38.5% for the second quarter of its 2016 fiscal year, driven by strong growth of whiskeys, rum and Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer.

Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer was cited as one of the driving forces behind Castle Brands’ “outstanding” Q2 results

The firm witnessed net sales grow to US$18.5 million for the second quarter ending 30 September 2015, compared to US$13.4m during the same period last year.

Total gross profit grew 44.5% to U$7.1m compared to US$4.9m during the same time frame the previous year.

“This was another outstanding quarter for Castle Brands,” said Richard J. Lampen, president and chief executive officer of Castle Brands. “Continued strong growth of our more profitable brands, such as Jefferson’s, Goslings and our Irish whiskeys resulted in substantial revenue growth and even greater growth in gross profit.

“This allowed us to decrease G&A as a percent of revenue, reduce net loss and increase EBITDA, as adjusted.

“We expect these trends of increasing sales and improving financial performance to continue over the balance of the fiscal year and beyond.”

Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer was hailed as one of the main driving forces behind the company’s performance, with case sales up 69.2% to approximately 325,000 cases in comparison to 192,000 in the comparable prior-year period.

Goslings Rum case sales also witnessed an improvement with 7.3% growth to 47,000 cases – an increase from 43,700 cases the year before.

Furthermore, Castle Brands has a new revolving credit facility capacity of US$19m (up from US$12m), which will allow the business to purchase additional aged whiskey inventory.

The company has already increased its reserves of aged Bourbon and agreed two long-term new fill deals to grow supplies of aged Bourbon for its Jefferson’s brands.

“In the quarter, additional purchases of aged bourbon reserves coupled with initiation of two long-term new fill programs put us in a solid position to support increased sales of our Jefferson’s bourbon portfolio,” said John Glover, chief operating officer of Castle Brands.

“We believe that Jefferson’s is now the fastest growing premium small-batch bourbon in America. We also increased our Irish whiskey offerings and expanded our barrel program for Knappogue Castle Whiskey.

“In addition, we continued to build on our successful relationship with Pallini liqueurs by extending our exclusive distribution agreement for an additional five-year period.”