Member Info for SebTaylor

They’re back on instagram with posts …. 3 new posts today 11 Oct

Just a follow up to my earlier post after a little more thought

It seems that there have certainly stopped the ability for online ordering of East Imperial beverages - but I'm not entirely sure if they have pulled out of Australia entirely. I just had a look at Dan Murphy's which is a huge liquor retailer here - and they were a stockist - but seems there is little availability on that site at the moment (and seemed limited to one State) . They may still be doing some wholesale selling and distribution into bars but I can't confirm that - but certainly the online ordering side has ended

Https://eastimperial.au/

"Sorry we are no longer available in Australia"

Not sure if this has already been mentioned or not - but they have pulled out of Australia

NEW HIRES AT EAST IMPERIAL
US SALES TEAM EXPANSION
East Imperial is pleased to announce the following new additions to the US sales team. The US is a key strategic focus for the business and these important hires will work closely with our national distribution partner RNDC to drive expansion and growth in 11 US states. With Mark Zonghetti at the helm of US sales, his team now brings over 100 years of US sales and distribution experience. They’ll be further additions over the coming weeks as Mark continues to build out his world-class sales team in North America.

Ted Alexandrakis - Head of National Accounts - North America
Ted has over 25 years of experience in the US beverage industry. Over the past 14 years, Ted worked in a senior capacity for the largest spirits and wine distributor in the US. Ted brings to our team significant experience, an incredible track record of success, and capability with key accounts acquisition and management. With his pedigree, combined with national distribution, we are excited about the opportunities in front of us with large US national accounts. Ted resides in Chicago.

Brent Young - Regional Sales Director - Arizona, Washington, Oregon and Colorado (Mountain Region)
Brent has over 25 years of experience in the US beverage industry. Brent began his hotel career with Hyatt Hotels, later joining the Four Seasons Hotel Group and progressing with various management positions in Seattle, Beverly Hills, Maui and culminating as the Food and Beverage Director at the 5 Star Four Seasons Hualalai on the Big Island of Hawaii. Brent has spent the last 19 years with Remy Cointreau USA managing diverse states such as Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and Hawaii. Brent resides in Seattle. We are fortunate to have someone of Brent’s breadth of experience leading our efforts in these key states.

Chris Moore - Sales Director - Mid-Atlantic Region
Chris has more than 20 years of experience in the beverage industry. Chris’s experience includes category analytics, distributor and chain account management across beer, wine, and premium spirits. We are excited to capitalise on his experience to expand our portfolio across the East Coast. Chris resides in Virginia.

Old news now - but email notification from the company this morning ...

EAST IMPERIAL WINS TOP PRIZES IN PRESTIGIOUS GLOBAL AWARDS
East Imperial’s collection of New Zealand made world-class mixers have won eight awards in the Tonic & Mixers Masters Competition. The Global Spirits Masters competitions are the World’s most highly regarded series of blind-tasting competitions, with East Imperial taking home two Masters Medals, the highest accolade recognising excellence in the industry.

East Imperial’s products were judged by a panel of renowned bartenders, beverage educators, and leaders in distribution in London.

The eight awards are:

Master's Medal (Best in Category):
Grapefruit Tonic (Flavoured Tonic Water category)
Grapefruit Soda (Flavoured/Infused Carbonated Mixer category)

Gold Medal:
Ginger Ale (Flavoured/Infused Carbonated Mixer category)
Ginger Beer (Flavoured/Infused Carbonated Mixer category)
Kima Kola (Flavoured/Infused Carbonated Mixer category)

Silver Medal:
Royal Botanic Tonic (Flavoured Tonic Water category)
Yuzu Tonic (Flavoured Tonic Water category)
Yuzu Lemonade (Flavoured/Infused Carbonated Mixer category)

Founder and CEO of East Imperial, Tony Burt, says these wins reinforce the work that the company has put in over the past few years:
“To have our tonics and mixers globally recognised as the best in the market is truly a highlight of this year for us. Our mission for East Imperial is to offer an ultra-premium, quality range of New Zealand made products that stand out and deliver an exceptional experience. We’re particularly thrilled to receive awards for our dark mixers as this includes the most recent addition to our product range, Kima Kola. This really is testament to the team’s incredible ability to continue to deliver world-leading product innovation, despite a backdrop of global supply chain challenges.”

About The Global Spirits Masters:
The Spirits Masters is hosted by Spirits Business, an international spirits magazine. In its 14th year, the Spirits Masters attracts global brands with a range of competitions including the Tonic & Mixers Masters as well as the Speciality Spirits Masters and the Design & Packaging Masters. Each competition is judged blind by leading distributors, educators and bartenders.

Looks like the company has recently won some Tonic & Mixer Masters 2022 awards given by the Global Spirts Masters.
Masters awards for the Grapefruit tonic and Soda
Gold awards for the Kola, Lemonade and Ginger Beer & Ale
Silver awards for the Yuzu Tonic and Royal Botanic Tonic

A good thing with their websites is that they are largely consistent over the different countries so its easier for them to set up a new one in each new country. The tricky part would be adding the shop front. So far they are all English language sites as well adding to the ease of setup.
I don't think I've seen any distributor announcements for the UK so far - at least one where they are looking at supplying supermarkets and consumers direct.
The NZ site is interesting as they offer a range of spirts with a case of their mixers e.g. a bottle of Bourbon with a case of Kimi cola - one stop shopping.

Another thing I like is the colour coding of their bottles, it identifies the type of bottle easily, which could be good in a darkened bar for instance - the bartender knows that the blue bottle is kola - he doesn't need his glasses to read the print on the label lol

Anyone looking for information on the company I would also suggest their investor site and in the document centre open the Bermele - EISB prospectus - there's a lot of pages in there but some of it is useful - history, financials, short term strategy - it just may take a bit of digging through. Its the basis of some of those numbers in my earlier post.

Yes first post on here - I'm actually overseas based.

Also looks like my last post lost a few words due to maximum character numbers and should have read at the end "Still I like the potential of this company". And I do like it - but having brought a few stocks in the past, you want to make sure you're buying at a good price and its harder when companies are not making a profit to come up with a valuation, hence my ponderings in my earlier post.

I agree if they can crack the US market and in a big way this could be a big winner - Fever Tree has only 23% of its revenue from the US against 41% from the UK for instance [2020 numbers]. I think building on what they have in Asia would also be good too, with the population sizes there and growing premium product demand.

Came across East Imperial recently and it aroused my interest, so much so that I've just ordered a 10 bottle sample case online and got curious about buying some shares.

I've had a little bit of a look at what financials I could find, and also await the 31/12/2021 results.
The current valuation against sales [x8] and fundamentals worries me a little but I understand that this is to be expected somewhat from what is regarded as a growth company. Still I'm not jumping in and buying immediately.

Initial thoughts are as follows:

Sales: Growth has been good from 17,000 cases [2014] to 50,000 [2015], 81,000 [2016], n/a [2017] 180,000 [2018] and 220,000 [2019], n/a [2020]
With reported revenue being $4.1m SGD [2018], $5.2m SGD [2019], $3.3m SGD [2020 covid impact] and $5.3m [expected 2021].
Interestingly Fever Tree revenues didn't decline much with covid, going down from GBP262m to GBP252m, but East Imperial went down from $5.2m SGD to $3.3m SGD - this could be impacted by different operating regions they are in and East Imperial being more on-trade focused.

Gross margin %: - Margin is a concern at only 27% [2018], 35% [2019], 29% [2020].
Fever tree was 50% [2019] declining to 46% [2020 covid]
This is something they really need to work on, and get it into the 40's and this will have to come from the cost side, I don't think they can increase their unit selling price. Margin should improve as production/sales improve but it has a way to go.

Marketing and Distribution costs:
These are high and I'm curious about some of them - e.g. Ambassador costs of $367k [2018] and $306k [2019] - hopefully these payments to Brand Ambassadors generate a big multiple of actual sales against their payments.
Marketing & Distribution costs will continue to climb as sales increase but hopefully their % against sales will decline.

Strategy:
Seems they are looking to expand the off trade / supermarkets segment and direct to consumer elements which will be good.
The release of new products is good but imo only to fill out any gaps in their range as I'd like the focus to go on building overall sales.
I like their focus on heritage, tradition, authenticity and would like to see this highlighted in the annual report or a separate brochure which also goes on to highlight their sourcing of ingredients and inspirations for their drinks.
I like their Instagram feed, which for me, has that focus on tradition and heritage - and is a good contrast to Fever Tree.
Their Websites are good - but can we keep the investor one updated - e.g. shares on issue - cases sold and the consumer one for example seems to missing the image of the paired East Imperial mixer on the pairings page.

I think going forward they need strong / exceptional sales growth and a big improvement in gross margin %, particularly to justify their market cap. They have been selling now for some 7 years and with the their recent capital raisings need to push sales hard now.
Still I like