C.A. Ron Santa Teresa – Clase B (VNA.B)

What it is

The business lives on a 3,000-hectare estate in the Aragua valley, founded in 1796 by the Count Martín Tovar Ponte, where rum has been distilled continuously from locally grown sugar cane ever since. It is Venezuela’s oldest rum producer, with a tradition of more than 200 years.

The company makes a range of aged and white rums — its flagship Santa Teresa 1796, plus Añejo, Claro and Selecto — and also harvests around 45,000 tonnes of sugar cane a year from its own estate, with the hacienda doubling as an events and hospitality venue. Its products carry the Controlled Designation of Origin “Ron de Venezuela” and are sold in more than 70 countries.

Who owns it

The Vollmer family, founders of the business, have owned and run Ron Santa Teresa for more than 200 years; the company is managed today by Alberto Vollmer, the fifth generation of the family. Class A shares, which carry the exclusive right to elect the entire board, have been listed on the Caracas exchange since 1978 — a move originally intended to make employees co-owners and broaden the company’s ownership base.

The company now has around 6,000 shareholders. The publicly traded Class B shares — which carry voting rights but not the right to elect directors — represent a minority free float; the current offering of 10 million Class B shares represents 1.73% of total capital.

The Vollmer family’s exact percentage of Class A equity is not disclosed in available sources, but Class A holders retain full board control under the corporate charter.

Who runs it

Alberto C. Vollmer is both Chairman of the Board and CEO; he joined the company as export manager, led its financial restructuring, and in 2003 founded Proyecto Alcatraz, a community rehabilitation programme that has become internationally recognised.

He holds a degree from Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas and has completed executive programmes at Harvard, Kellogg, Chicago and IMD.

Fady Abuyaghi serves as Finance Director, having taken over from Marcos Rodríguez, who held that role during the company’s stock market debut. The accounts are audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers Venezuela (Freites, Montañez, Carreira y Asociados).

The money, in plain words

Audited annual accounts (fiscal year ending 30 June 2024) were published on the BVC in December 2024, but the full financial statements are held behind a Scribd login on the exchange’s site and their revenue and profit figures were not recoverable in machine-readable form from available sources. The most recent publicly stated USD figures date from the fiscal year ended June 2019: Ron Santa Teresa reported a net profit of US$5.6M that year, on revenues of roughly US$26.1M (Venezuela: US$15.6M; international: US$7.3M; other: US$3.2M).

The company also reported a return on equity of 10% in that period.

At today’s BVC price of 330 VES (Bs.) per Class B share and ~578 million total shares outstanding (our calculation from the 1.73% disclosure), the implied market value of the whole company is roughly Bs. 190.7 billion VES — about US$273 million at the official rate of 698.47 VES per dollar (our calculation).

The company has paid cash dividends denominated in bolívares, most recently equivalent to a total of US$330,000, or roughly US$0.00057 per share.

What it is doing now

In March 2026, Santa Teresa launched a new public offering of up to 10 million Class B shares, approved by the national securities regulator SUNAVAL under Resolution 015 dated 6 March 2026. The money raised is earmarked equally for capital investment — upgrading the distillery and ageing cellars — and working capital to support growth.

Between 2024 and 2025, the company grew its Venezuelan sales volume by 21%, while its flagship Santa Teresa 1796 ranked as the second-fastest growing brand in the global super-premium rum segment, recording 31% year-on-year growth internationally. That international momentum is driven by a global distribution alliance with Bacardí, struck in 2016, which gives Santa Teresa reach across more than 90 countries.

What to watch

• Full financial disclosure. Audited consolidated accounts for fiscal year 2024–25 are filed with BVC but not yet publicly machine-readable; their release — revenue, margins, net profit — is the single most important data event for investors.
• Capital expansion. The company explicitly links this share offering to expanding production capacity, with a 21% domestic volume gain already achieved in 2024–25.
• Class B governance risk. Class B holders — including all public market investors — have no right to elect directors; the Vollmer family’s Class A shares retain full board control, meaning minority shareholders rely entirely on family stewardship and regulatory oversight.
• Venezuela macro. Inflation fell to 48% in 2024 from 190% in 2023 — still high enough to distort any local-currency profit figure and complicate year-on-year comparison of reported results.
• Bacardí dependency. The alliance with Bacardí distributes Santa Teresa 1796 across more than 80 countries; the strategy focuses on international premium growth rather than any sale of the business. Renewal or renegotiation of that deal would materially affect the export growth story.

This is news, not investment advice.