Philippine Billionaire Andrew Tan’s Emperador To Broaden Investor Base With Secondary Listing on SGX

Emperador—controlled by billionaire Andrew Tan—will start trading tomorrow on the Singapore Exchange as the Philippine liquor giant seeks to broaden its investor base and bankroll its international expansion plans.

“The secondary listing of Emperador on the SGX is a key milestone in the development of our business as a leading international brandy and whisky company, reflecting our global reach and the strength of our world-class portfolio of brands,” Winston Co, group president and CEO of Emperador, said in a statement ahead of the listing. “This will expand opportunities for participation by investors in Singapore and beyond as we continue to invest in our ambitious international expansion.”

With a market capitalization of 280 billion pesos ($5 billion), Emperador’s Philippine-listed shares have retreated from its peak of 24.30 pesos a piece in February as the company reported flat net profit growth in the first quarter after surging 25% to 10 billion pesos in 2021. Analysts believe that the secondary listing in Singapore will boost the stock’s appeal to international investors. “There might be a better appreciation of its international whisky business there,” April Lee-Tan, chief equity strategist of Philippine brokerage COL Financial, said.

The secondary listing is jointly managed by UBS AG and JPMorgan, whose mandate is to explore ways to boost the trading liquidity of the stock. “Emperador is really an international company,” Joey Roxas, president of Philippine brokerage Eagle Equities, said. “It will benefit from its listing on an international exchange. Its whisky products are known globally.”

Founded in 1979, Emperador is tycoon Andrew Tan’s first business before venturing into real estate. In the past decade, the company has grown to become the Philippines’ biggest liquor manufacturer with the acquisition of Whyte & Mackay—the world’s fifth largest Scotch whisky producer by volume—in 2014 and Spain’s Bodegas Fundador—the world’s No. 1 brandy maker—the following year.

Emperador is a subsidiary of Tan’s holding company Alliance Global, which has earmarked 60 billion pesos this year to expand its real estate, liquor and fast food chain businesses. Tan chairs Alliance Global, Emperador and Megaworld, which has built a portfolio of residential condominiums, offices, hotels, shopping malls and townships across the Philippines in the past three decades. With a net worth of $2.6 billion, Tan ranked No. 8 when the list of the Philippines’ 50 Richest was last published in September.