Latest news with #EricVallat
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Who is Remy Cointreau's new CEO, Franck Marilly?
May 28 (Reuters) - French wines and spirits company Remy Cointreau ( opens new tab announced on Wednesday that Franck Marilly will replace CEO Eric Vallat who resigned earlier this year. Marilly will take up his new role on June 25, after a transition period working with Vallat. Marilly, 59, is from France and has more than 30 years of experience working in luxury and cosmetics groups. He is a graduate of the EDC Paris Business School. Having lived and worked internationally, he said in a press release he has a deep attachment to the land in south-west France, where he is from and where the Cognac region is located. Marilly started his career in the luxury industry as a general manager for a division of the fragrance group Chanel in 1991. He worked for consumer goods giant Unilever between 1994 and 2001, first as managing director of the cosmetics export division then managing cosmetics for Spain and Portugal followed by France and Belgium. Marilly came back to Chanel to be managing director of the Italian and then French market before being promoted to senior vice president of U.S. fashion. In 2010, he returned to Europe to become the continent's managing director for Chanel's fragrance and beauty until 2017. Before joining Remy Cointreau, he was working for Japan's Shiseido as President and CEO and Chairman of the EMEA and global fragrance division. In February, he was also appointed as Foreign Trade Adviser of France. Marilly will have to lead the French cognac maker through a period of sales decline and tariff threats in its key U.S. and Chinese markets. "We are convinced that he will bring a new dynamic and will be able to confidently address the new challenges of the Group's growth in a complex macroeconomic and geopolitical context," Chairwoman of the Board of Directors Marie-Amélie de Leusse said in a press release. Remy makes some 70% of its sales from cognac, mostly in the U.S. and China, but right now, drinkers in those nations are not buying the brandy and sales have fallen.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Remy Cointreau Names Marilly as New CEO After Vallat Resignation
Remy Cointreau SA appointed Franck Marilly to replace outgoing Chief Executive Officer Eric Vallat, after the latter said in April that he would step down. Marilly will start on June 25, the Paris-listed group said in a statement Wednesday.
Wall Street Journal
5 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Remy Cointreau Names Franck Marilly as CEO
Remy Cointreau RCO 0.25%increase; green up pointing triangle said that Franck Marilly will take over as chief executive officer in late June. The French cognac maker said Wednesday that Marilly will succeed Eric Vallat on June 25. Marilly—who was appointed Foreign Trade Advisor of France in February—will continue to implement the group's value strategy while working to innovate its products, the company said.
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Franck Marilly appointed as new CEO of Remy Cointreau
May 28 (Reuters) - French wines and spirits company Remy Cointreau ( opens new tab has appointed Franck Marilly as new CEO of the group from June 25. "Eric Vallat will work alongside Franck Marilly to ensure a harmonious transition, allowing him to fully assume his responsibilities," the company said, referring to the current CEO. Marilly is joining Remy Cointreau after working in luxury and cosmetics groups, such as Chanel, Unilever and the Japanese group Shiseido.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Woes surround Cognac and its ongoing slump requires urgent attention
The Cognac region was at its autumnal best: Indian summer sunshine, the dark green vine leaves contrasting with the bleached chalk soils of the pristine Grande Champagne vineyards, a bumper crop of grapes safely gathered in. And yet there was an unmistakably gloomy atmosphere around the place, which seemed out of kilter with a category that remained – to all appearances – on a post-pandemic tear of growth. This was October 2023 – only 18 months ago, and yet an age away in terms of the health of the Cognac category. What the Cognacais already knew, and the rest of us were later to find out, was that their world was beginning to turn. Warehouses groaning with stock in the US; China failing to pick up as expected following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions. In 2021, at the peak of the post-pandemic surge, 223.2m bottles of Cognac were shipped around the world. The number in 2022 – 212.5m bottles – was billed as a return to normality, being only 4m bottles shy of the pre-pandemic total of 216.5m bottles, recorded in 2019. Then came 2023: shipments totalling 165.3m bottles. That's a drop of 26% versus 2021, and 24% compared to 2019. Hardly surprising, then, that I encountered so much angst during that October visit to the region. Nonetheless, Cognac generic body the BNIC sought to reassure, citing temporary overstocking issues and predicting a return to pre-Covid shipment levels from 2024 onwards. Instead, however, 2024 saw Cognac treading water, with shipments barely rising to 166m bottles. Worse still, value dipped by more than 10% to fall below €3bn (in 2022, it stood at €3.9bn). That discrepancy between the volume and value trends is easily explained. While shipments of younger, typically VS Cognacs rose by 13.7% last year, VSOP shipments dropped by 8.6% and XO by 26.4%. (There's one reason for this slump – China – but we'll get to that in a moment.) This depressing dynamic has played out in the recent results announcements from the Cognac industry's biggest players. Moët Hennessy's first quarter Cognac and spirits revenues down 17% to €736m, thanks to 'soft demand' in China and the US: Rémy Cointreau's 2024/25 Cognac sales plummeting 21.9% to €611.8m. Rémy's figures are particularly dispiriting for a business that, even after recent declines, relies on Cognac for 62% of its revenue pool. The grim news coming out of China was leavened somewhat by a sharp recovery in the US, with the company tactically focusing on its entry-level VSOP product in a market that has long been a driver of volume rather than value. Rémy has endured two years of constantly declining revenues, something which may or may not have been a factor in the announcement that Eric Vallat was stepping down as CEO, with board chair Marie-Amelie de Leusse taking on the role on an interim basis while a replacement is found. We're told that Vallat will be pursuing 'a new professional project' from this summer, which is almost as vague as the traditional tropes employed in these announcements, such as 'personal reasons' or 'pursuing their career elsewhere'. The lack of succession planning suggests that one party or the other had concluded that enough was enough. It's fair to say that most of Cognac's recent travails have been beyond the industry's control. Covid-19, the artificial demand bubble that followed it, the delayed economic consequences of the pandemic – and now tariffs and trade wars. But these problems are accentuated by the category's over-reliance on two regions – NAFTA and the Far East – or rather two countries: the US and China. Even after the difficulties of the past couple of years, NAFTA accounted for 43% of global Cognac shipments in 2024, with the Far East at 29% (and Europe at 19%). The promising evolution of South Africa – now an 8m-bottle market – offers a tantalising glimpse of what might have been, had Cognac's four leading brands worked harder to develop new markets during the good years, as a hedge against times like these. Events in the US are deeply worrying, not just because of the delayed possibility of 20% tariffs (although a 10% tariff still applies in the meantime), but also because of the sheer uncertainty of dealing with the economic whims of the Trump administration. But the situation in China is more serious still. Following the Ministry of Commerce's (Mofcom) provisional decision to impose additional duties of 38.1% on Cognac (and Armagnac, and other EU brandies), its anti-dumping investigation has been extended until at least 5 July. This news prompted a joint response from the BNIC, Armagnac body the BNIA and FEVS (Fédération des Exportateurs de Vins et Spiritueux de France), following the visit of Jean-Noël Barrot, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs, to China on 27-28 March. You can feel the caution running through the text, as the bodies cautiously welcome the extension of the probe, as well as hints that the stockpiles of Cognac sitting in Chinese ports might be permitted to be sold in duty free (the channel has been technically suspended in China since the announcement of the provisional tariffs, with a major impact on trade). But then comes the kicker: 'However, in substance, these developments do not alter the situation for Cognac exporters, who have been subjected to provisional taxes in China since last October. For Cognac alone, these taxes have effectively excluded them from their second-largest market, resulting in a 72% drop in shipments, particularly for the month of February alone.' Because of the nature of the Cognac industry, dominated as it is by four huge brands – Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier – it's easy to simply view the consequences of the situation in China (and the US) through a corporate prism. Organic revenue declines, profit margins slashed. What the BNIC/BNIA/FEVS joint press release hints at, however, is the deeper impact on an entire region. Urging all parties to resolve the China anti-dumping dispute, it continues: 'This additional period [until 5 July] must be used to find a diplomatic solution to remove our industry from this economic dispute, to which it is entirely unrelated, and which currently threatens to plunge it into a devastating and historic economic and social crisis.' Hyperbole? I'm not so sure. Beyond the glitzy bottles of Louis XIII and Richard Hennessy, the Cognac region is a complex, interdependent ecosystem that encompasses brand owners, distillers, winegrowers and more. For all the luxury, it's still an agricultural industry. There may be four dominant brands in Cognac, but there are also 4,360 winegrowers and distillers, 130 professional distillers, 14,500 direct jobs and 72,500 people whose livelihoods depend on people continuing to knock back Sidecars and sip glasses of XO. If the current slump isn't arrested, and arrested soon, there'll be a lot more than company share prices at stake. "Woes surround Cognac and its ongoing slump requires urgent attention" was originally created and published by Just Drinks, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
