Ron Sim, Taha Bouqdib to bring TWG Tea, Bacha Coffee under V3 Gourmet Group

Singapore

RON Sim, founder of lifestyle products group V3, is joining forces with longtime business partner Taha Bouqdib to set up V3 Gourmet Group. The new venture will invest more than US$100 million for growth, focusing on brands in the food and beverage (F&B) and gourmet retail sectors.

For a start, it will house TWG Tea and Bacha Coffee. TWG was co-founded by Bouqdib while Bacha is currently partially owned by him. Both brands will continue to operate independently.

Sim will be V3 Gourmet's chairman while Bouqdib will be chief executive.

On the rationale behind the move, Sim said Asia at large is getting "more affluent" and people in the region are increasingly focussing on quality of life.

"Affordable luxury has great potential," he said, adding that TWG Tea and Bacha are both brands that are "well-positioned and conceptualised" with quality products.

Sim and Bouqdib also noted that the Covid-19 pandemic has not hit the consumption of luxury products.

Conversely, Bouqdib said, people now have greater appreciation for affordable luxury items, which means it is the "right time for V3 Gourmet to be in the market".

Both Bouqdib and Sim said that they have invested "a lot of money" into both brands - TWG Tea and Bacha - over the past decade, but declined to comment on their exact stakes or investments in V3 Gourmet.

V3's involvement in TWG dates back to 2011, when V3 invested S$31.4 million for a 35 per cent stake in TWG. Over the years, V3 has continued to invest in TWG and to raise its stake in the company.

Prior to the latest announcement on V3 Gourmet, V3 Group was organised into three arms: V3 Brands, which covers TWG Tea, OSIM International and GNC; V3 Capital which deals mostly with fintech; and V3 Assets which handles holdings in real estate.

Data from analytics platform Handshakes as at Oct 22 show that the newly set-up V3 Gourmet has a stake in Bacha.

Handshakes' data also show that Sim has been a director of TWG Tea since Jun 1, 2011, and a director of Bacha since Sep 13, 2021.

V3 Gourmet plans to spend more than US$100 million over the next three years to grow TWG Tea and Bacha across the globe, and to acquire new brands.

TWG Tea and Bacha are "full-chain brands", meaning they handle the sourcing, packaging, distributing and retailing of products on their own.

While Sim and Bouqdib said it would be difficult to state definitively if all brands in the V3 Gourmet stable will similarly be "full-chain", they said brands with elements of "tradition, legacy or some level of craftsmanship" that can be scaled globally will be of interest to them.

Some possibilities include whiskey or speciality chocolate brands, the duo said, adding that the entity will also look at brands in the market that present great opportunities but could use a "rebirth".

The key to keeping V3 Gourmet sustainable and viable will be to innovate according to trends that emerge in the market, they added.

"Innovation and creation is our main business," said Bouqdib, adding that several brands have been unable to keep up with changing consumer patterns or had products that could only garner interest for a short period of time.

In fact, Sim said, there are opportunities for V3 Gourmet in different countries to swoop in and "reshape, renew and reposition" some legacy brands.

As V3 Gourmet grows, Sim also estimated that the entity could hire "a few hundred" employees in total for both Singapore and globally across all levels and job scopes.