William Grant & Sons details ‘challenging’ 2025 after 13% profit decline
William Grant & Sons (WG&S) has released its results for the year ending 31 December 2025, detailing a difficult year as challenging headwinds continue to prevail.
The Scotch giant reported a turnover of £1,758m, with a profit before tax of £337m – 13% lower than 2024.
WG&S said that, despite difficult conditions including ongoing geopolitical and trade pressures and weak consumer demand, its focus has continued to be long-term shareholder growth.
The business implemented significant brand investment and expansion of distillery capacity over 2025, acquiring the well-known Scotch whisky The Famous Grouse and the Naked Malt brands, along with continuing its work on the expansion of the Girvan Distillery on the west coast of Scotland.
Overall volumes were down year-on-year, with performance varying across the portfolio – WG&S said that it saw “resilient contributions” in select areas of the business, including share growth in several categories and ongoing progress in some key markets.
The distiller would not expand on which markets it had seen progress in, or the specifics of the volume decline when approached by Harpers.
Scotch sales over 2025 were hampered by tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump – the US being the category’s largest market for value sales, and third by volume.
As Harpers previously reported, value sales to the United States fell 4% across the whole of 2025, with volume declining by 9%.
However, this year the situation for Scotch exports has somewhat improved, with tariffs lifted by the US government in July 2026, along with a Free Trade Agreement between India and the UK coming into force which significantly cut whisky tariffs.
Other challenges – such as the cost of doing business in the UK and weakening consumer demand – remain.
Its CFO, Graeme Jenkins, said: “2025 was another challenging year for the spirits industry, with external pressures affecting performance across many of the company’s key markets. Against this backdrop, our focus has been on outstanding execution, while at the same time maintaining our long-term approach to brand and distillery investment.
“While the results reflect the current operating environment, our confidence in the long-term fundamentals of the spirits industry remains strong. The company will continue to take those actions that ensure we are well positioned to benefit when market conditions improve.”
WG&S is a sixth-generation independent family-owned distiller founded by William Grant in 1887.The company distils, bottles and distributes of the world’s leading Scotch brands, along with other spirits.
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