Lark Distilling to spend $40m expanding whisky production






Tasmania’s Lark Distilling Co. is to buy Pontville Distillery and Estate for $40 million, construct a new 1 million litre distillery and accelerate its single malt whisky export operations.

The company is raising $53 million through a fully underwritten share placement of $46.5 million and a further non-underwritten conditional placement of $6.4 million.

It will use the funds to buy Pontville’s owner, Kernke Family Shene Estate Pty Ltd, where it will build the new distillery to be operational in 2023.

Pontville will be Lark’s third working distillery in Tasmania, alongside its Cambridge and Bothwell sites and will contribute to the inhouse production of 576,000 litres of Lark whisky each year

Lark managing director Geoff Bainbridge said: “The acquisition of the Pontville…supports our vision of becoming a global icon in single malt whisky.

“These assets provide significant whisky inventories on value accretive terms and re-balance the maturity profile of our overall whisky under maturation.

“Critically, the age profile and quality of the whisky under maturation being acquired will enable The House of Lark to commence an export programme from FY23 which is approximately 12 months ahead of previously published plans.”

The Pontville estate and distillery are located 30 minutes north of Hobart and includes 40 acres of land and buildings, a 130,000 litre distillery, a cellar door, eight bond stores, a working cooperage and the historic stables and homestead.

The acquisition delivers 483,000 litres of whisky under maturation for $24 million, with Lark now expected to have two million litres of whisky under maturation at 30 June 2022, valued at $435 million.

Picture: Lark Distilling

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