Cheers mate, and excellent analysis to you too.
The crux to this all is export volumes (not necessarily prices at this point). They are selling less volume than anticipated, and while China trial exports looks good, the trial is still very small in volume. They simply need to work out that export strategy. My guess is that remains behind schedule still, and with Pontville coming on board, there's more whisky maturing next year and even more pressure to get that out the door. While building up inventory / whisky bank can be good, if it is because they are not selling their product it will be quite a problem. So this is what I am really looking at closely.
As I noted, I had conservatively estimated sales around 113,000litres this year, but they only sold around 80,000litres (thus the build up in the whisky bank ahead of schedule). My estimate for next year was around 245,000litres - which they won't do, but that's the maximum they could do based on their current inventory.
If they can do $35-40m in revenues in FY23 though, that would be a big win. So with the NSR being much higher than expected, they may only need to achieve around 160,000litres. Still, that is a big step up in the current volumes and will only be met through exports. And that's why I am really focusing on that export strategy - and no doubt while Lark is looking for an international CEO with export experience.
On a side note, it was super positive to see the revenue from other (restaurants, estates, and their bars) coming in at $5m in the fourth quarter. That is a huge step up from the $1.3m in the third quarter. Clearly, they are opening up and Tassie tourism is doing really well at the moment. The value of this is underestimated by the market imho.
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