Author: Ina Verstl

On 23 August 2023, a plane carrying Wagner’s top brass including its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and commander Dmitri Utkin fell from the Russian sky, two months after their short-lived uprising. If you thought this would spell the end of this notorious private military company (PMC), you are mistaken. Although it was renamed Afrikanski Korpus (African… Continue reading August 2024

You can’t accuse analysts of not keeping up with the times. Remember Marie Kondo, who introduced us to the Japanese art of decluttering back in 2019? The term has now become the latest buzzword among finance guys, who are calling upon the drinks industry’s big hitters to prune their portfolios of growth-shy brands. It’s not… Continue reading July 2024

Diageo exits Nigeria and sells stake in Guinness Nigeria. It is joining other multinationals who are exiting or reducing their exposure. The West African nation is facing its worst cost-of-living crisis in decades. The Singapore-based Tolaram Group agreed to buy Diageo’s 58 percent majority stake in stock market-listed Guinness Nigeria for USD 70 million. Both… Continue reading June 2024

Well bye then, James Watt. The controversial co-founder and CEO of BrewDog has stepped down after 17 years at the helm of the Scottish brewer and bar chain, media reported on 8 May. He will be succeeded by BrewDog’s current COO, James Arrow, who is expected to focus on returning the loss-making company to profit.… Continue reading May 2024

It’s been a tough few years for BrewDog’s CEO James Watt, what with the accusations of nurturing a toxic workplace culture, a far from friendly BBC documentary, and now the disaster of the Lost Forest scheme. That the Lost Forest is in tatters only came to light after the campaigner Nick Kempe had asked for… Continue reading April 2024

Visiting a Scottish distillery must be so romantic (and profitable for the brands’ owners) that in 2023, Diageo alone welcomed 1.13 million people to its sites in Scotland. The world’s biggest Scotch whisky producer operates 12 visitor centres at its distilleries across Scotland, as well as the Johnnie Walker Princes Street emporium in Edinburgh, which… Continue reading March 2024

Covid isn’t over, not by a long shot. In Australia, two major craft breweries, Hawkers and Big Shed, entered into voluntary administration to pursue financial restructuring. They have made loses due to increased production costs and legacy tax debt from the pandemic, compounded by excise hikes and a cost-of-living crisis where people struggle to pay… Continue reading February 2024

January 2024 What a surprise: Danish craft brewer Mikkeller has sold a 20 percent stake to Carlsberg for an undisclosed sum. Mikkeller’s CEO and founder Mikkel Bjergsø will retain majority ownership, though, and will continue to run the firm. Carlsberg bought the stake from US private equity firm Orkila, which first invested in Mikkeller in… Continue reading January 2024

When will Diageo stop making negative headlines? Last month, Diageo’s shares fell as much as 16 percent in one day after it said it expected first-half operating profit growth to decline due to a “materially weaker performance” in Latin America and the Caribbean. Just as its stock was beginning to recover, the US news outlet,… Continue reading December 2023

Never has the life of a business executive been so risky. In September, word spread that two businessmen working for global firms were not permitted to leave China. A worse fate befell a Japanese employee at the Chinese arm of Astellas Pharma. He had been detained since March on espionage charges and was formally arrested… Continue reading November 2023

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the US Department of Justice’s momentous decision to block the proposed merger between AB-InBev and Mexico’s Grupo Modelo. It would have turned Constellation into an importer, more or less at the mercy of its supplier AB-InBev. When the regulators forced a settlement on AB-InBev and Grupo Modelo, which… Continue reading November 2023