Cuervo owner raises credit to buy Bushmills
JB y Cia SA, the family-owned owner of Jose Cuervo tequila, plans to sell bonds to help pay for the acquisition of Northern Irish whiskey producer Bushmills, according to reports.
Bloomberg, the New York-based business online news service, reports an unnamed source as saying the Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are arranging investor meetings in the US and Europe.
The Mexican distiller, which claims to be the world's largest tequila maker, agreed in February to buy Bushmills from Diageo for US$408 million and full ownership of the Don Julio tequila brand.
According to unconfirmed but persistent rumours, Diageo had tried to buy the Jose Cuervo brand outright but a deal could not be agreed.
The deal having collapsed and needing to bolster its tequila portfolio, Diageo added 100% blue agave tequila Peligroso in January 2014. The announcement came three weeks after the Diageo and Sean Combs’ joint venture bought prestige tequila brand DeLeón.
Peligroso is a super premium tequila from the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico and comes in four variants: Silver, Reposado, Anejo and the flavoured variant, Cinnamon.
This March Diageo announced a pledged to make capital investment to expand local production facilities across distilling, bottling and water treatment as well as increasing its agave farming capacity in Mexico, following the completion of its acquisition of Don Julio.