The latest figures from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) confirm that positive momentum has returned to the sector. The industry organisation reports that during 2011 sales of spirits in the US climbed by 2.7% in volume terms and by 4% in value terms. These figures are broadly in line with our previous estimates for the year, with a slew of producers reporting... 2012-01-31

Philippine spirits producer Ginebra San Miguel has acquired all outstanding shares in its rival East Pacific Star Bottlers Philippines for PHP200mn (US$4.6mn). While Ginebra's acquisition could have been prompted by the reasonably attractive opportunities in the local spirits industry and the prospect of stronger pricing power, we believe a bigger motivation is the growing influx... 2012-02-03

Russian-based vodka producer Russian Standard has made an offer to Poland-based Central European Distribution Corp (CEDC) that could see it take a 32.99% stake in the business. CEDC is under pressure due to concerns over its large debt pile, with US$207mn of its debt due in 2013. Russian Standard currently owns 9.9% of the business and is also an important debt holder. The proposed... 2012-02-03

BMI's food and drink Risk/Reward ratings assess a market's attractiveness to industry investors in comparison to its peers. The Reward part of the rating takes into account market size, current consumption levels, future industry growth prospects (based on our five-year industry forecasts), market fragmentation (with greater fragmentation indicating higher opportunities) and the... 2012-01-20

French retail giant Carrefour has announced that its Chairman and CEO Lars Olofsson is to be replaced by Georges Plassat, currently the head of fashion retailer Vivarte Group. Plassat is to take control in June 2012 and will face the task of turning around a firm that has seen its share price fall by 70% over the last five years. Ironically, we had finally started to see some positives... 2012-02-01