Rémy Cointreau in mood for acquisitions

French spirits producer Rémy Cointreau has said it is open to acquiring new brands in an effort to further premiumise its portfolio following a positive financial year for the company.

Chief executive Valérie Chapoulaud-Floquet is moving Rémy Cointreau firmly into the premium end of the market (Photo: Rémy Cointreau)

Speaking after the publication earlier this week of its brightest financial report in several years, chief executive Valérie Chapoulaud-Floquet said that Rémy Cointreau’s desire to cater for the world’s high-net-worth consumers was “a new adventure” for the company.

Hand-in-hand with this “adventure” is the company’s desire to acquire more premium brands. “These probably won’t be big acquisitions”, admitted company chairman François Hériard Dubreuil, but “if a big house ends up being for sale, we might look,” he said.

The Rémy Cointreau group, which produces Rémy Martin Cognac and Cointreau orange liqueur among other core brands, flaunted the success of its new focus on high-end products when it published its annual results earlier this week.

In particular, the success of its Bruichladdich premium Scotch whisky, which it acquired in 2012, showed that its approach was already beginning to pay off.

Bruichladdich doubled its sales in the year to March 31, just one of several well-performing spirits for the company. Rémy’s spirits and liqueurs portfolio, which doesn’t include the group’s Cognac brands, grew 7.2% in sales and helped net profits jump by 18%.

Overall, full-year net profit for the company leaped by 49% to €92.6 million from €62.4 million a year earlier.

Rémy Cointreau already produces some of the world’s most expensive Cognacs, but these have been performing poorly in recent years following the company’s over-investment in Asia before the Chinese clamped down on extravagant spending.

However, the category is due for more positivity after the company successfully shifted its focus to what is now its largest market for Cognac, the US, which had record growth in 2014.

Rémy Cointreau now aims to increase its marketing spend to push its premium brands, Ms Chapoulaud-Floquet said, as the company wants to position them as the main drivers of growth by 2019.