French billionaire Olivier Goudet breaks silence on Treasury Wine Estates stake
The former JAB Holdings chief, Olivier Goudet, has said luxury demand will rebound as he bets on the Australian wine giant with a new 6.17% stake.
The French billionaire who has become one of the biggest investors in Australian giant Treasury Wine Estates has broken his silence about his stake building.
Olivier Goudet says he has bought in for the long term and believes demand for luxury brands will rebound.
Goudet, who scooped up 6.17% of the company’s shares, says he has bought in for the long term. He has taken advantage of the share price weakness, which has seen the group’s stock market
Track record in global consumer brands
Goudet is a former head of private investment group JAB Holdings BV, which has holdings in consumer businesses including Dr Pepper and Krispy Kreme.
His vote of confidence will come as relief to Treasury, which earlier this month reported a half-year loss of A$U649.4 million (£335 million) and increased the size of the cost of its goodwill writedown in the US by taking a AU$770.5 million hit, even larger than it suggested in December.
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Stripping out those big writedowns, Treasury’s overall earnings were down 40% to AU$236.4 million on a 17% nosedive in revenue to A$1.3 billion.
Cost-cutting drive under new CEO
New chief executive Sam Fischer announced in December that he would cut annual costs by AU$100 million over the next two to three years by trimming channel stock, which would steady increase pricing and rebuild brand momentum. That Project Ascent is said to be making good progress.
Major court victory in China
In a second piece of positive news this week, Treasury has achieved a major victory in China’s courts.
After a battle lasting more than a decade, Treasury has been awarded more than US$10 million in damages against a wine brand accused of aping its prized Penfolds label.
A Chinese court on appeal ordered the defendants behind a brand called “Rush Rich” to pay RMB 70.56 million (about US$10.2 million) in damages.
The first two Chinese characters in the name are identical to Penfolds’ Chinese brand name, and the English name “Rush Rich” is widely seen as a literal translation of those characters. The bottles also featured white labels with bold red lettering and numeric product names — hallmarks of Penfolds’ signature livery.
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