
Billionaire drinks family acquires UK's best-selling whisky
The Famous Grouse is a best-seller. (Image: Colin Mearns) The buyer said: 'This historic moment for WG&S demonstrates the company's commitment to the global Scotch whisky category and confidence in the future of the wider spirits industry.'
The Famous Grouse and Naked Malt join WG&S' portfolio alongside Glenfiddich, The Balvenie, Hendrick's Gin and Monkey Shoulder.
The firm added: 'The Famous Grouse is Scotland's best-selling whisky and one of the top-selling Scotch whisky brands worldwide, renowned for its quality and heritage, while Naked Malt has garnered a loyal following among whisky enthusiasts and has significant growth potential within the blended malt segment.'
Read the full story here
Scottish family business brings in majority shareholder
Hamish Marshall and Svenja MacMillan, who has joined the long-established business as a director. (Image: James A Marshall/Nevis Capital) A historic Glasgow family business is targeting growth in the UK and elsewhere in Europe on the back of a Scottish investor taking a majority stake.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The spirit of the G8 ‘make poverty history' summit of 2005 seems long gone
Twenty years ago this weekend, the leaders of the world's most powerful countries, chaired by Tony Blair, gathered at the Scottish golf resort of Gleneagles and made a series of historic promises on debt relief and overseas aid. It was the culmination of a long-running campaign involving charities, churches and celebrities and benefited from the passionate commitment of Gordon Brown, for whom international development is a lifelong cause. A few days before, more than 200,000 campaigners had gathered in Edinburgh and formed a noisy, joyful human chain, demanding that the world's leaders 'make poverty history'. As a result of the momentum created and the promises made, international aid increasedand 36 countries eventually had their crippling overseas debts drastically reduced. There are many reasons it would be hard to envisage a Gleneagles summit today. The certainties of the early noughties, when globalisation felt like an unstoppable force underpinning economic growth and restraining inflation, are long gone. Just three and a half years after Gleneagles, Brown, by then prime minister, was hosting a meeting of the G20 in London's Docklands, at which global leaders scrambled to respond to the havoc wreaked by the global financial crash. Old certainties were cast aside, relationships strained and the claim to leadership of the G8 industrialised countries was hopelessly undermined by the fact that the crisis originated on their doorstep. The resulting deep recessions in many wealthy countries raised questions about voters' commitment to global causes. In the UK, public support for development, once solid enough to encourage David Cameron to embrace the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid, started to fall away from about 2012-13. More recently, the world has become a much more fragmented, multipolar place. Middle-income countries such as China and India have demanded more prominence on the global stage. Russia's territorial aggression in Ukraine prompted its expulsion from the G8 – now the G7 – and killed off any lingering hopes that free trade and capitalism would ultimately usher in liberal democracy. Global solidarity was hard to summon, then, even before Donald Trump's second term unleashed chaos in the global trading system. The budgets of many rich-country governments have taken a battering from repeated economic shocks, at the same time as pressure mounts for more defence spending to confront potential threats. Labour ministers are quite right when they say 'the world has changed'. Yet despite the more fraught global backdrop, the campaigners who worked alongside Blair and Brown at Gleneagles and beyond have been profoundly shocked by the British government's casual disregard of development. Three years ago, Keir Starmer was promising to undo Boris Johnson's 'misguided' decision to absorb the Department for International Development back into the Foreign Office. Labour's manifesto dropped this idea. It suggested the UK had 'lost influence' as a result of the Tories' neglect of international development and promised to 'turn the page to rebuild Britain's reputation', restoring aid to 0.7% 'as soon as fiscal circumstances allow'. Instead, Labour slashed the aid budget, with little discussion, when Starmer wanted to promise Trump he would raise defence spending on his White House trip in February. Jenny Chapman, the development minister who replaced Anneliese Dodds when she resigned in protest at this deep budget cut, has insisted the UK still wants to lead on development. Yet it is hard to take the moral high ground while admitting that no area of policy, including projects to support women and girls' health and education, will be safe from the cuts. Labour has said it wants to create respectful partnerships with developing countries; but Save the Children UK's director, Moazzam Malik, told me recently that the cuts would be felt by many countries not as a new-found era of collaboration but as a withdrawal. As the UK steps back at the same time as Trump is dismantling USAID, the challenges in some of the world's poorest countries have only intensified. In particular, a blizzard of recent expert reports has called for action on the unsustainable debts squeezing many governments' budgets. The UN-backed Financing for Development conference in Seville last week ended with promises of reform, including the wider use of 'pause clauses' to halt repayments during natural disasters, for example – something the UK has supported. More radical solutions that might have included debt write-offs did not make it through the negotiations, but South Africa hopes to use its chairmanship of the G20 to press for more progress in the coming months. Michael Jacobs, a former Brown adviser, now a visiting professor at the Overseas Development Institute, insists there was a sense of momentum on debt relief in Seville. 'It was the single most significant topic of debate. There is rising pressure on the creditor countries – including China – to act. So, as in 2005, the moment for a new international debt relief package may be arriving,' he said. Other campaigners returned from Seville notably downbeat, however, pointing to the difficulties of assembling a global coalition of the willing on development in a time of tight budgets and fraying international bonds. Summoning the spirit of Gleneagles may be too much to hope for, two decades on. But after a string of economic shocks and as the climate emergency accelerates, the moral imperative to act remains – even if this Labour government can't find it in a focus group or on a spreadsheet.

Western Telegraph
an hour ago
- Western Telegraph
Our Place founder warns supermarket dupes will 'cause businesses to fail'
Our Place co-founder and co-chief executive Shiza Shahid said the brand was growing rapidly in the UK despite dupes appearing on the market. Ms Shahid launched the Los Angeles-based business with her husband in 2019, with Will Smith's Dreamers VC, Jay-Z's Marcy Venture Partners, and Gwyneth Paltrow among its early investors. Shiza Shahid said the brand was growing rapidly in the UK despite dupes appearing on the market (Our Place/PA) It specialises in kitchenware including pans designed to be non-toxic and non-stick, and collections created in complementary colours and aesthetics. Widely-shared posts on social media, especially Instagram, have helped drive popularity of the brand in recent years – including a collaboration with actress and singer Selena Gomez. Similar versions of bestselling products – namely the 'Always Pan' which currently sells for £125 – have recently launched in supermarkets including Aldi and Marks & Spencer with a lower price tag. Ms Shahid told the PA news agency: 'Unfortunately I think it is incredibly harmful. 'When we started Our Place, my partner and I bootstrapped our savings and worked on the design for two years before we ever sold a single unit. 'And when multi-million dollar corporations come and they knock it off, with no regard for innovation, IP, small business, they are causing tremendous harm and it will cause a lot of businesses to fail, and it will destroy innovation.' She said such companies are 'very skilled in the art of duplicity' which makes it difficult and costly for smaller brands to legally challenge. But the businesswoman told PA that they were 'not able to guarantee that same level of detail and quality' with replica products. 'So we trust that, while not every consumer will see the difference, many will and many do,' she said, adding that shoppers often want to 'support brands that they believe in'. A spokesman for Aldi said: 'For over 35 years we have championed customers by offering high quality exclusive products at the lowest possible prices. 'We go to great lengths to ensure that all our exclusive brand products are compliant with strict copyright laws and regulations.' M&S has been contacted for comment. Ms Shahid, who also co-founded the Malala Fund with Nobel Prize winner and campaigner Malala Yousafzai, said Our Place products are typically viewed as an 'accessible luxury'. 'Despite some of the cost-of-living challenges, people are investing in the home and kitchen,' she told PA. 'The first thing you do is maybe you go out a little bit less, but then you still want the joy and the nourishment and the connection, and home cooking is a really great way to do that. 'It feels like an everyday luxury… people are choosing products that will last, that will bring joy, and that will actually help them save money over time.' Widely-shared posts on social media, especially Instagram, have helped drive popularity of the brand in recent years (Our Place/PA) Sales across the brand spiked by 92% over the first quarter of 2025 compared with the same period last year, and it has built more than a million active customers. It is also set to launch a shop-in-shop space within London department store Selfridges amid efforts to expand into retailers and take on established competitors such as Le Creuset. Ms Shahid said Our Place has 'a lot of younger consumers but we also have a lot of men and women in their 60s', while many of its products – including the countertop 'wonder oven' – appeal to single-person households and small families.


Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Partick Thistle FC asks fans to offer their spare rooms to future stars
It is hard to imagine the wealthy 'galacticos' of Europe's top sides ever slumming it in the spare room of one of their supporters. But community-minded Partick Thistle has urged its fans to throw open the doors of their homes to provide digs for its future stars. The club, which is owned by its supporters, has asked for help in providing any out-of-town signings with a roof over their head. The Scottish Championship side, which missed out on a lucrative promotion to the Scottish Premiership at the end of last season, has insisted the move is not due to financial pressures but to promote better player integration. A spokesman told the Daily Record: 'As a fan-owned club, we're always keen to involve Thistle supporters where we can and this is a great example of that. 'Embedding new players and potential new recruits in the community that surrounds our club helps them to settle more quickly and also provides valuable support in lots of ways when moving to a new city. 'It is common practice at clubs of all sizes across the UK. It's not a reflection of financial constraints, but rather part of our broader approach to community integration.' It comes after the Firhill club made several domestic signings this year including Sean Kelly, 32, who joined the Jags in February on a deal until the end of the season and keeper Lewis Budinauckas, 23, who returned to the club last month on a one-year contract. Irish-born defender Dan O'Reilly, 30, also signed for the Scottish Championship side in January last year on an 18-month contract with a one-year contract extension in October. Thistle have faced financial challenges in previous seasons, particularly since their relegation from the Scottish Premiership at the end of the 2017-2018 season. The latest accounts show the club's turnover was £3,203,875 in the year ending May 31, 2024, compared to £2,817,844 the previous year. The financial year ending May 2024, saw a pre-tax loss of £131,811, an improvement of £224,023 on the prior accounting period. Last month, the club appealed for volunteers to help get the club ready for the new season. A statement on their website said: 'In recent years supporters and members of the local community have joined forces with the club's Maintenance Team to have our home spruced up through fresh paint and other odd jobs. Paint brushes, paint as well as other equipment and materials will be supplied.' In May it was confirmed that Mark Wilson would become permanent head coach. The Partick Thistle spokesman added: 'This initiative has been introduced by our recently appointed Sporting Director Ian Baraclough who has worked at both club and international football in recent seasons. He views it as best practice especially with the safeguarding checks that the club would undertake.'