March 8, 2010

PUREGOLD owner Lucio Co may revel in his Ho Chi Minh goatee and Chinoy looks, but the mall chain magnate apparently has an inner Castilaloy yearning to make a whole lot more money.

According to industry chatter, the 55-year-old dutyfree importer has acquired the exclusive distributorship of the popular Fundador brandy from Spain.

Lucio Co

It was not immediately clear why Fundador’s Philippine distributor, the multinational Beam Global that also markets the best-selling Spanish brandy worldwide, was replaced.

According to the grapevine, Co was supposed to have offered the distiller Bodegas Fundador Pedro Domecq P1.3 billion in cold cash to buy the existing Fundador stock now in the country.

The Fundador distributorship coup is the culmination of a campaign to corner the Spanish brandy importation into the Philippines, beginning with Co’s having acquired the distribution rights to the second-biggest selling brandy from Spain, Alfonso, into the country.

Interestingly, the Philippines, according to published accounts, is the largest export market not only for Fundador but also for Alfonso as well.

What is causing concern for other malls, supermarkets and liquor retailers now is whether Lucio Co the distributor would also undercut other liquor retailers by pricing Fundador and Alfonso lower in S&R Membership Shopping outlets and his Puregold supermarkets nationwide.

 If the grapevine chatter is correct, the recent raid by Customs agents of the former Tabacalera

compound, another beloved Spanish brand whose real estate assets had been acquired by Co, was part of the power-play as to who would eventually distribute the Spanish drink.