Remy Cointreau reports rise in first-quarter sales, raises guidance
Sales have spiralled in Remy's key U.S. and Chinese markets in recent years, forcing the company into multiple guidance downgrades and to scrap ambitious medium-term sales targets. But it said in June that the worst was over.
The maker of Remy Martin cognac and Cointreau liqueur said its first-quarter organic sales rose 5.7% year-on-year, well ahead of the 2.3% expected by analysts, returning to growth soon after new CEO Franck Marilly took the helm in May.
Remy said the quarterly rise was driven by a low base of comparison versus a year ago in the United States. Sales in China, meanwhile, continued to fall but Remy described the decline as "limited".
High U.S. inflation and gloomy consumer sentiment in China had already knocked Remy's business even before actual, or threatened, tariffs emerged in both markets.
China imposed steep duties affecting imports of cognac in October 2024. These were reduced as part of a deal between the industry and authorities in July, easing Remy's pain.
As a result, Remy now expects the annual blow from Chinese duties to be lowered to 10 million euros from 40 million euros projected previously. But it has hiked the hit expected from U.S. tariffs on European goods by 10 million euros, to 35 million euros.
The revised U.S. forecast is based on the assumption that European exports to the U.S. would face a tariff rate of 30% - the level U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose on August 1 unless ongoing talks result in a better deal. It previously assumed a 20% levy.
Remy also now expects its full-year operating profit to decline by mid- to high-single digits, an improvement on the mid- to high-teen decline it had previously anticipated.
The company makes around 70% of its sales from cognac, mostly in the U.S. and China, leaving it more exposed to tariffs and economic downturns than more diversified peers.
Remy's cognac sales grew 1.3% organically, also surpassing expectations, despite tough market conditions in China and a "sharp drop" in sales in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
($1 = 0.8518 euros)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
3 minutes ago
- The Guardian
News Corp warns Trump AI is eviscerating sales of The Art of the Deal
News Corp is warning Donald Trump that AI is cannibalizing sales of his books, including The Art of the Deal. The company, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owns dozens of newspapers and TV channels around the world including the Wall Street Journal, the Times (in the UK), the Australian and the New York Post. News Corp also owns book publisher HarperCollins, which has published three of Trump's books, though his best-known title, The Art of the Deal, was published by Random House. Still, the company appeared keen to warn Trump about the impact AI is having on publishing. 'The AI age must cherish the value of intellectual property if we are collectively to realize our potential,' News Corp said in a statement with its fourth-quarter earnings report. 'Even the president of the United States is not immune to blatant theft. The president's books are still reporting healthy sales, but are being consumed by AI engines which profit from his thoughts by cannibalizing his concepts, thus undermining future sales of his books. 'Suddenly, The Art of the Deal has become The Art of the Steal.' Media outlets have sued AI companies, including OpenAI, operator of ChatGPT, for using their content to train AI models without permission. In May, a federal judge rejected OpenAI's request to dismiss a lawsuit from the New York Times over its usage of the newspaper's content. Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post sued Perplexity AI in October over similar copyright claims. News Corp's message to Trump also comes after the White House last month announced Trump's 'AI action plan' that would see the loosening of AI regulations that had been put in place under the Biden administration. In an earnings call Tuesday, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said that the company is in the middle of 'advanced negotiations with several AI companies'. 'It's clear that many of them have come to recognize that the purchase of [intellectual property] is as important as the acquisition of semiconductors or the securing of stable energy sources,' he said, noting that it's a mix of 'wooing and suing'. 'We prefer the former, but we will never shy away from protecting our property rights,' he said. The warning comes at a tense moment between News Corp and the White House. Trump sued the Wall Street Journal after the newspaper published a report that the president had once sent Jeffrey Epstein an intimate birthday message that included a sexually suggestive drawing of a woman. Trump claimed that the report was false and amounted to libel. The newspaper has requested a judge dismiss the case. Murdoch, who also owns Fox News, was once friendly with Trump, though relations soured during the president's third presidential campaign. The company beat fourth-quarter expectations with Tuesday's earnings announcement, largely due to a rise in digital subscriptions from Dow Jones, which houses the company's business publications like the Wall Street Journal, Barron's and MarketWatch. On Monday, News Corp announced it will launch a sister tabloid to the New York Post in California, called the California Post, in early 2026.
Reuters
3 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump set to fill Fed board vacancy by week's end, has narrowed chair search to four
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will decide on a nominee to fill a coming vacancy on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors by the end of the week, and had separately narrowed the possible replacements for Fed chair Jerome Powell to a short list of four. "I'll be making that decision before the end of the week," Trump said of his plans to name a replacement for Fed governor Adriana Kugler, who last week unexpectedly announced she was leaving as of this Friday to return to her academic position at Georgetown University. Trump, in comments to reporters at the White House, distinguished between picking Kugler's replacement for a term that only lasts until January, and the selection of Powell's replacement once he leaves the top Fed job in May. But with the Fed board's other seats occupied with people, including Powell, whose terms run for years longer, Trump's choice of Kugler's replacement could have implications for his selection of a chair, a process Trump said has been narrowed to economic adviser Kevin Hasset, former Fed governor and Trump supporter Kevin Warsh, and two other people. Trump did not name those people, but one is thought to be current Fed governor Christopher Waller. "We're also looking at the Fed chair, and that's down to four people right now ... Two Kevins and two other people," Trump said. Trump earlier in the day said in an interview with CNBC that he had removed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from consideration for Fed chair because Bessent wanted to remain in the top Treasury job. In the CNBC interview, Trump said Kugler's decision to vacate her seat early was a "pleasant surprise" that gives him an immediate opening to fill with a person who could also be promoted to take Powell's place. Kugler's replacement would, at least initially, by appointed for just the few months remaining in Kugler's term. But Trump could be explicit that he plans for that person to then be nominated to a full 14-year term after that time, and to also be his choice to replace Powell - giving his nominee several months and several policy meetings to begin to influence the policy debate. "A lot of people say, when you do that, why don't you just pick the person who is going to head up the Fed? That's a possibility too," Trump said in the CNBC interview. The president has been critical of Powell for not cutting interest rates since Trump returned to power in January, and contemplated trying to fire him, even as Fed policymakers balance evidence of both a slowing economy and a weakening job market against the fact that inflation remains well above the central bank's 2% target and is expected to move higher. The Fed is charged by Congress to maintain stable prices and maximum employment, and is potentially facing a situation where the two goals conflict with each other - posing a painful set of tradeoffs. The nominee to fill Kugler's seat will need to be confirmed by the Senate, and would require another Senate vote for a full 14-year term early next year. The nomination for the next Fed chief would require a separate Senate confirmation process. Kugler's departure was announced the same day that Trump, angered over data that showed job growth slowing in the first months of his administration, fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer while alleging without evidence that BLS was manipulating the jobs data to make him look bad. Economists have warned since Trump returned to the White House in January that his combination of import tariffs and erratic trade policy would likely lead to a labor market slowdown and higher inflation, a broadly shared outlook that has been among the factors keeping the Fed from lowering rates until the inflation impact becomes clearer. The central bank last week held its policy rate steady in the 4.25%-4.50% range, though Waller dissented on the grounds that the inflation risk from tariffs appeared modest at best, while the job market and growth in general appeared to be weakening. The release on Friday of the jobs report for July, with weak monthly employment gains and downward revisions to prior months, appeared to validate those concerns and led to increased market bets the Fed would cut rates at its September 16-17 meeting. The firing of the BLS commissioner touched off a global wave of concern about the continued integrity of U.S. government data, with Trump's actions being given a fire-the-messenger interpretation by much of the economics and statistics community. The president's choice now to head the statistics agency and potentially to lead the Fed will be scrutinized all the more carefully, said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Imagine if one of your concerns is that there's a lackey in charge of the agency and the numbers are fake. That's ... another level of problems," Strain said of the BLS. "Maybe he sees this independence thing really matters. Maybe he's got somebody from the outside saying 'Look, Mr. President, if you appoint somebody who's perceived to be a lackey as the Fed chair, take the BLS freakout and multiply by 1,000."
Reuters
3 minutes ago
- Reuters
Three years into war, US and Europe keep billions in trade with Russia
Aug 5 (Reuters) - Three years after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States and European Union still import billions of euros worth of Russian energy and commodities, ranging from liquefied natural gas to enriched uranium. India this week lashed out at what it called Western double standards, after facing renewed threats from U.S. President Donald Trump over its surging purchases of Russian crude oil. Here are the main commercial ties that the U.S., Europe, and India maintain with Russia, and their evolution over the last four years: Since the beginning of the war, trade between the EU and Russia has drastically contracted due to EU sanctions and import restrictions on some products. Imports from Russia fell by 86% from the first quarter of 2022 through the first quarter of this year, according to the latest data from Eurostat. Imports of goods from Russia in the first quarter of 2025 totaled 8.74 billion euros ($10.11 billion), down from 30.58 billion euros four years earlier. Since January 2022, the EU has imported 297 billion euros' worth of Russian goods. The EU, however, continues to purchase oil, nickel, natural gas, fertilizer, iron, and steel from Russia. Four years ago, Russia was the largest supplier of petroleum products to the EU, but the EU ban on maritime imports of Russian crude oil reduced its share to 2.01% in 2025 from 28.74% in 2021. Oil imports fell to 1.48 billion euros in the first quarter of 2025 from 14.06 billion euros four years ago. Russia's share in natural gas plummeted to 17% in the first quarter of 2025 from 48% in 2021's first quarter. Russia's share in non-EU iron and steel imports slumped to 7.71% in the first quarter of 2025 from 18.28% four years ago. As for fertilizers, a sector in which the European Parliament voted in May to impose prohibitive tariffs, Russia remained, as of the first quarter of 2025, the largest exporter to the European Union. Its share fell slightly from 28.15% to 25.62% in the last four years. In contrast to Europe, India's imports from Moscow surged to $65.7 billion in 2024 from $8.25 billion in 2021, data from the Indian Commerce Ministry website showed. Crude oil has been the biggest driver of the growth in India's imports from Russia, jumping to $52.2 billion in 2024 from $2.31 billion in 2021. India's imports of coal and coal-related products from Russia surged to $3.5 billion from $1.12 billion in 2021. India's fertilizer imports from Russia rose to $1.67 billion in 2024 from $483 million in 2021. U.S. imports, opens new tab from Russia fell to $2.50 billion in the first half of 2025 from $14.14 billion four years earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. Since January 2022, the U.S. has imported $24.51 billion of Russian goods. Last year, the U.S. imported around $1.27 billion of Russian fertilizers, up slightly from $1.14 billion in 2021. The U.S. imported enriched uranium and plutonium from Russia worth around $624 million in 2024, down from $646 million in 2021. Russia exported palladium to the United States for around $878 million in 2024, down from $1.59 billion in 2021. ($1 = 0.8641 euros)
