Chairman's notes from Angostura Holdings Limited - September 30, 2011

"I am pleased at the continued strong performance of the Group as evidenced by our 2011 third quarter results. Despite reduced trading hours due to the nationwide State of Emergency, year-to-date sales are up $80.1M (15%) versus our 2010 performance and third quarter sales are up $38.8M (23%) versus the third quarter last year. We view this as a sign of the improved brand loyalty attained through our successful image enhancement programmes undertaken over the past months.

Our profit after tax for the nine month period of $102.7M includes a mere $2.1M in foreign exchange gains and $1.7M in other income as compared to the $12.7M and $11.3M reported respectively for these line items in the prior year (as against a profit after tax of $91.6M for that year). As a consequence, our results are reflective of the true profitability of the underlying business. We continue to actively monitor the exchange rates of the Trinidad and Tobago dollar against the Euro and the United States dollar with a view to risk mitigation in light of the options available to us.

Our year-to-date selling and marketing costs of $81.4M are $22.9M (39%) higher than 2010 levels since the major part of our 2010 spend was incurred in the final quarter of the year when our Single Barrel campaign was gaining momentum. Our 2011 spend includes the continued cost of this campaign which peaked during the second quarter of 2011 and tapered off during the third quarter. In addition, other re-imaging activities such as the re-packaging and re-launch of our premium brands (1919 and 1824 rums) incurred some spend in the third quarter of 2011.

I am encouraged by the $0.49 year-to-date EPS and in consideration of current performance trends I anticipate continued success for the Group for the full year 2011.”

Gerald Yetming
Chairman
(November 3, 2011)