In the spirits industry, mergers of equals are a slippery thing. Pernod Ricard and US-based Brown-Forman, owner of Jack Daniel’s, officially announced last week the end of discussions over a possible tie-up. On March 28, a leak had forced them to reveal talks that had been under way for several months.
Even if such a union between two family-controlled groups was always going to be complex, discussions had made significant progress in recent weeks on the contours of the future entity. According to our information, the principle of a future headquarters remaining in Paris, with leadership entrusted to Alexandre Ricard, supported by a chief executive from Brown-Forman, had been agreed. The idea of a dual listing in Paris and on Wall Street had also been settled.
But the American and French sides failed to agree on a structure that would allow the two shareholder families to hold a more balanced stake in the new group. Today, the Brown family owns 50% of the US group, while the Ricard family…
