Useful information
Prime News delivers timely, accurate news and insights on global events, politics, business, and technology
By Mimosa Spencer and Tassilo Hummel
Paris (Reuters) -Alexandre Arnault is assuming a key role in the wine and spirits business of $ 6 billion LVMH just when the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
The alcohol division, whose brands include Moët & Chandon Champagne and Hennessy Cognac, has seen its income drops for two consecutive years and its drop in operational profits in more than one third in 2024.
It is likely that their challenges become more difficult if recently Trump Taxes in China join an economic deceleration there, and if threatened in Europe follows.
Alexandre Arnault, one of the five children of the LVMH CEO, Bernard Arnault, competing for more responsibility in his father’s empire, told Reuters that he needed a few months to elaborate a plan.
“Give us 100 days to wrap it and understand the business … because it is a business that will need a lot of restructuring,” he said outside the group’s annual results last week.
The United States is the largest market of Wine and Spirit Unit for sales, with just over a third of its cognac and high -end champagne sold there. Representing less than 10% of the sales of the LVMH group, the unit is vulnerable to commercial tensions.
Commercial data show that the LVMH cognac business increased deliveries to the US. In December as distributors built inventories.
France’s luxury groups were beaten in Trump’s first presidential term when he went to champagne and bags on a French digital services tax that would decide that he would damage companies.
“While we continue to believe that the US spirits. UU. It will recover even more, tariffs provide short -term uncertainty,” Barclays wrote in a note on Tuesday.
Triunfo ties
Bernard Arnault and family members have cultivated personal ties with Trump. Bernard, his wife Helene Mercier, Alexandre, and his daughter Delphine, who runs Dior, sat just behind the former presidents of the United States at the inauguration of Trump.
Praising a “wind of optimism” in the United States, Bernard Arnault said last week that LVMH was considering increasing the production capacity there.
Alexandre assumed Monday as an attached CEO of the Alcohol Unit, along with Jean-Jacques Guiony, Jean-Jacques of LVMH, a veteran of the industry. Alexandre marked the change in his Instagram account with a publication that shows that he was going to one of the LVMH grands in Burgundy.
Business detachment in difficulties “was not on the agenda,” said Bernard Arnault last week in response to the recent LVMH speculation could visit its ties with diameter again, which has a minority participation in the beverage division. He said he would closely monitor his son and script.
