How much money is Jay-Z’s D’Usse Cognac brand worth? Apparently much more than any reasonably-minded person could have imagined. Jay-Z owns a 50/50 share of the cognac brand in a partnership with Bacardi, and according to new documents obtained by TMZ, the rapper and mogul reportedly offered to buy out Bacardi’s half of the venture for $1.5 billion in December of 2021, but they rejected him. There’s more to this story that’s actually a bit messy. So what’s really going on here?
Back in October, Jay-Z and his company, SC Liquor, had reportedly sued Bacardi, requesting “total financial clarity” on the venture. It seems as though Hov and the spirits giant were far apart in their valuation of the D’usse brand, which they’ve co-owned since 2011. While Jay-Z asserted that D’Usse was worth $2.5 billion, Bacardi countered with a $460 million valuation.
The TMZ report insinuates that because Bacardi rejected a $1.5 billion bid for a brand that they valued for much less here, they haven’t been fully transparent about the inner workings of D’Usse, hence the initial lawsuit for full disclosure of documents. This is an interesting advancement, considering that it was Jay-Z and SC Liquor who were trying to sell their half of D’Usse back to Bacardi, to begin with. Now they make a bid to buy the brand in full and get rejected? Furthermore, they allege that Bacardi meddled with a third-party appraiser on the valuation and nothing is as it seems on the valuations at all. Stay tuned for what happens, but in the meantime, perhaps Jay-Z is better served focusing on robots who make pizza.