Marie Brizard reports "contrasting" Q3
Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits has recorded a third quarter of contrasts, with improvements in France but penalisation in the US and Poland.
The company said it had “made up the ground lost at the start of the year” as net sales for the first 9 months of 2015 totalled €144.8 million in France, up 0.2% compared with the same period of 2014.
Wine activity improved by 2.3% over the first nine months of 2015, driven by the good performances recorded by Fruits and Wine, Marie Brizard said.
In spirits, William Peel continued to grow (1.3%) in a market that has decreased by 1.7%. Sobieski is reported to have improved during the third quarter.
In other markets, net sales were down 1.7% in Poland. Over the first 9 months of the year, net sales were down 8.3% on the same period of 2014, at €117.4 million. Net sales in Lithuania and Spain were up during this period, at 6.2% and 1.2% respectively.
In the US, net sales totaled €13.4m, down 3.9%. The company said discounts negatively affected sales but were more than offset by the decrease in marketing expenditure. Despite these “negative mechanical effects”, Sobieski’s performance remains positive as sales grew three times more than the imported vodka segment, at 2.9%.
Jean-Noël Reynaud, CEO of Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits, said: “The third quarter was one of contrasts. In France, the situation significantly improved even though we have barely begun our advertising investments.
“In Poland and the United States, our activity was penalised by exogenous factors that had a significant impact. We have opted to weigh on the short term in order to benefit the long term. In Poland, where we were the victims of an unacceptable blackmail attempt, we refused to accept these irregular practices and have taken our destiny in hand, and we accept full responsibility for this decision and the impact it has had. This alters neither our ambitions nor our business plan.”