Control of the names Domecq and Pedro Domecq
has returned to Jerez, where they began. González Byass and Fundador announced
yesterday the completion of the 81 million euro deal with Pernod Ricard for the
purchase of all Domecq brands and installations by Bodegas Las Copas, a 50/50
joint venture. The deal had been agreed back in November, but needed the green
light from the Mexican competition authorities which has now been given.
The deal comprises the Mexican brandy distillery
and the Casa Pedro Domecq wine bodega in Baja California as well as business
interests in the United States, Brazil and Benelux. Just the three brandies
produced in Mexico, Presidente, Don Pedro and Azteca de Oro, account for 50% (1.2
million cases) of the Mexican brandy market.
Back in 1994 Allied Lyons bought the Domecq
business for a whopping 600 million euros, renaming itself Allied Domecq, but
before long the vultures were circling in the form of Pernod Ricard and Fortune
Brands who jointly bought the business and shared out its parts. PR got the
brand name and the business in Mexico while Fortune (in the name of its
subsidiary Beam) got the Sherry, brandy, bodegas and vineyards in Jerez. By the
time Beam was taken over by Suntory it had divested itself of some of its
principal assets: the La Ina range (to Lustau), the VOS and VORS Sherries and
the Carlos brandies (to Osborne) as well as the Palacio Domecq and the Gallo
Azul.
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