Tariffs would be a drag, but Guinness boss still needs to find a brew for recovery

There’s no hiding from a 5% fall in operating profit at owner Diageo in the second half of 2024, Trump trade policy or not

Donald Trump’s on-off tariffs are at least good for one thing: they provide struggling managements with a handy excuse to ditch their sales forecasts. Diageo, the Guinness, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff combo, was able to cite “the current macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty” – exhibit A being the possible US tariffs on Canada and Mexico – as it dropped its guidance for growth.

What that reasonable-sounding explanation misses, however, is that nobody believed Diageo’s old forecasts anyway – and they hadn’t for a long time before Trump re-entered the White House. The company’s longstanding “medium-term” range of 5% to 7% for organic sales growth was achieved in 2022-23, but it has looked fanciful ever since the newish chief executive, Debra Crew, issued a thumping profits warning in November 2023.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/IbpBOAz

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