Top Shelf International, the Australia-based distiller, today (24 May) completed part of a share issue drawn up to help bolster its balance sheet.
The publicly listed group said it had raised A$10m (US$6.6m) from institutional investors and received “commitments” worth A$1.3m from retail shareholders.
Top Shelf International had been looking to raise up to A$13.9m and said institutional shareholders had pledged to take up A$1.3m of the “shortfall” from the offer to retail investors.
The owner of Grainshaker vodka and Act of Treason agave is aiming to reach “positive EBITDA” and “operating cashflow breakeven” by the fourth quarter of its 2025 fiscal year. It is in the final quarter of its 2024 financial year, which ends in June.
Last month, in another move to support its balance sheet, Top Shelf International signed terms on a sale-and-leaseback deal for its agave farm in Queensland.
In the three months to the end of March, the third quarter of the company’s current fiscal year, it generated net excise revenue of A$4.2m, up from A$3.7m in the corresponding period a year earlier. Top Shelf International booked a loss at an EBITDA level of A$2.8m, lower than the A$4.6m it posted the year before.
In a statement issued alongside those results, Top Shelf International CEO Trent Fraser said: “The business model focused on value creation is working, evidenced in continued gross margin and EBITDA improvement in Q3 over the prior comparative period.”
The company’s third-quarter gross margin was A$1.9m, versus A$1.5m in the third quarter of the previous financial year.
In the full year to the end of last June, Top Shelf International’s revenue was A$27.5m, up 36.3% on the previous 12 months.
The company reported a loss at an EBITDA level of A$27.5m – compared to $18m the year before – and a net loss of A$48.3m, versus A$16.4m a year earlier.
