Cupid Breweries & Distilleries is an Indian alcoholic-beverage company built from scratch after a dormant finance shell was taken over in late 2023 and completely repurposed - its name, its business and its stock-market listing were all replaced within a year. The recurring approach is to acquire existing licensed units, revive idle capacity and stitch together a national production footprint through subsidiaries and contract partners, rather than building everything from the ground up. That is how a company with only five direct employees on its rolls can already claim a pipeline of four Indian plants, an Uzbek subsidiary, a UAE greenfield project and a growing portfolio of beer, IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) and craft spirits. # Business segments A single engine at an early stage - an alcoholic-beverage manufacturer that aggregates capacity through acquisitions, contract bottlers and its own plants, then sells beer, IMFL and craft spirits under its own brands. ## 1. Alcoholic beverages: a production network stitched together from acquired and contracted units **The company does not yet operate a single large flagship brewery of its own - it assembles capacity by buying distressed or under-construction units, signing marketing agreements with third-party plants, and converting subsidiaries into contract bottlers.** - **Acquired, not just built** - the company’s most significant move was buying a 97.83% stake in Crochet Industries Private Limited, an Odisha-based spirits manufacturer with land in a port-adjacent “economic golden corridor,” through a share swap that required no cash. It followed that by agreeing to purchase an operational alcobev unit in Gopalpur, Odisha, from a Diageo Group company, gaining an installed capacity of roughly 2,50,000 cases per month along with land, plant and premium excise licences. - **Four own plants in the pipeline** - the company is setting up a distillery and brewery in Goa (75,000 cases per single shift, scalable to 1,50,000 in double shifts), a brewery in Mysore (800 KL per month, or over 800,000 cases annually), an IMFL unit in Kalyani, West Bengal (90,000 cases per single shift, scalable to 1,80,000), and a brewery in Pune’s Chakan industrial area with both keg and can-filling capability. Each plant is positioned close to high-demand markets - Goa’s tourist hub, Kolkata’s metro demand, Karnataka’s beer consumption - so freight and time-to-market are kept short. - **Third-party units act as contract bottlers** - the company signs marketing arrangements with existing breweries, such as a Pune plant with 1,25,000 litres per month of beer capacity, and uses them to produce its own brands without owning the assets. This lets it place brands in West Bengal, Karnataka and other states before its own plants are fully operational. - **A product ladder from beer to single malt** - the portfolio spans beer, IMFL and craft spirits, organised into Prestige, Premium, Super Premium, Craft and Single Malt tiers, so the same distribution channel can serve price points from mass-market beer to high-end whisky. The company is also building a Malt-Spirit facility at Gopalpur through its subsidiary Crochet, which would give it backward integration into its own spirit base rather than buying all its ENA (extra-neutral alcohol) from the open market. - **International bets are early but real** - a wholly owned subsidiary in Uzbekistan has won an auction for 3.84 hectares of industrial land, and a UAE entity has signed an exclusivity agreement with Germany’s Steinecker GmbH for halal-certified non-alcoholic beer technology, with a 48-month lock on the equipment supplier in the UAE. These are small commitments today, but they give the company a foothold in two export corridors while its Indian capacity is still being built. # Group structure and partners **The company operates through a web of 11 subsidiaries, with two large Odisha-based spirits manufacturers at the centre, and uses share swaps rather than cash to bring assets under its control.** - **Crochet Industries is the anchor subsidiary** - acquired in April 2025 for a 97.83% stake via a share-swap, it brings a manufacturing base in Odisha, a land parcel for a brand-promotion resort near Gopalpur Port, and a Malt-Spirit conversion project that moves the group towards making its own raw spirit. - **Rinpoche Spirits adds a second Odisha unit** - the company agreed in March 2026 to acquire 100% of Rinpoche Spirits Private Limited, another Odisha-based IMFL manufacturer, again through a share swap with no cash outflow, consolidating more licensed capacity in a state that serves as a gateway to East and Northeast Indian liquor markets. - **International subsidiaries are shells waiting for capital** - the Uzbekistan subsidiary has secured land but could not receive capital infusion in FY25 because of its negative net worth, while the Singapore and Dubai entities have been approved in principle but are not yet operational. - **A resolution-process acquisition is in progress** - the company has been issued a Letter of Intent after its resolution plan for SDF Industries Limited (formerly Superstar Distilleries and Foods) was approved by the creditors’ committee, which would add another distressed asset to the portfolio if completed.