Business Briefs - July 7

The Edinburgh-based BenRiach Distillery Company has announced plans to invest more than £25m in the business over the next two years.

The plans, which were announced as the company reported record pre-tax profits in its 11th year in business, include a “major” investment in additional warehousing capacity.

The distillery owns the BenRiach, GlenDronach and Glenglassaugh single malt whisky brands.

Pre-tax profit for the last financial year was up by 24 per cent to £11.1m, while turnover climbed 17.6 per cent to £41.5m.

BenRiach has grown quickly since it was taken over by managing Director Billy Walker and two South African partners in 2004.

In 2005, the company’s turnover was less than £5m, and it employed just 12 people.

It now has 120 staff across four sites, including Aberdeenshire-based distilleries GlenDronach and Glenglassaugh, and a bottling plant in Newbridge, Edinburgh.

AAM shareholders back share issue plan

Wealth manager Aberdeen Asset Management has received shareholder backing for its plan to issue 200 million new shares at a general meeting held in London.

The initiative gained near unanimous backing.

AAM said: “Each of the ordinary resolutions put to the meeting in connection with the issuance was passed by the necessary majority on a poll vote.”

The company is raising £100 million from Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation by issuing the non-voting preference shares.

AAM said it intends to invest in funds and strengthen its balance sheet.

Scotgold offers chief options on 33m shares

Scotgold Resources, the company behind a bid to extract gold from a mine in Tyndrum in the Trossachs, is set to offer chief executive Richard Gray options on 33 million shares at the current share price, exercisable only when gold is finally produced from the site.

Scotgold listed on the Alternative Investment Market in 2010 and originally hoped to start production in 2011 but was hit when the gold price fell back from $1,600.

It had to be rescued last year by Nat Le Roux, former chairman and chief executive of IG Group, now an independent director of the London Metal Exchange.

He is now chairman and holds more than 40 per cent of the shares.

Mining engineer Mr Gray, who took over last October after other commitments forced Scottish chairman, Sandy Littlejohn, to resign after just two months in charge, will also be able to exercise options on five million shares when the company successfully concludes financing for the project.

All the shares will vest and be exercisable at a price of 0.6p, just below the current price of 0.62p.

Mr Gray said six weeks ago that the “bankable feasibility study” for the company’s Cononish Gold and Silver Project at Tyndrum in Argyll would be complete this month.

He said then the latest estimate of ore reserves at the mine showed the project was robust even with gold at $1,100 an ounce (currently $1,164) and Scotgold was in “early stage discussions with potential financiers”.

In March, Mr Gray said he believed construction work would start by the end of September, and “we will be pouring gold at the end of the first quarter 2017”.

The group’s shares peaked at 6.25p in October 2011.

SFS parent group eyes global expansion

Falkirk-based Alexander Ross Holdings has reported strong profits and is looking for more overseas growth.

The 90-year-old family business, which created Scottish Fine Soaps 40 years ago, already exports 70 per cent of its soap and employs around half the group’s total workforce of 94, which was unchanged from last year as pre-tax profits rose by1.5per cent to £1.25million.

Group turnover was up marginally at £15.5m, according to the accounts filed at Companies House, a rise of around 35 per cent since 2009 when profits were only £512,000.

Welcoming the figures, managing director Robert Ross explained SFS was looking to grow its business in the US and Europe and further afield.

He said: “We are also looking at China in a small way, and at India, but mainly trying to get some growth out of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France.”

Showing confidence in future growth, Mr Ross said the company was about to make a £500,000 investment in new machinery for its liquid soap lines.