In under three weeks, former Shiseido and Chanel executive Franck Marilly will take the hot seat at Rémy Cointreau, joining a business where sales and profits have tumbled over the last 12 months.

Marilly is also taking the helm at a spirits group where Cognac, a category under significant pressure in recent quarters, accounts for around 70% of sales.

It’s clear the new Rémy Cointreau CEO will have plenty in his in-tray and, while market watchers have a number of questions about the company’s near-term prospects, there are, it’s argued, some fundamental issues about the make-up of the business.

The group’s last financial year, which ran until the end of March, was another tough period for the Rémy Martin Cognac maker.

Net profit decreased 34.4% to €121.2m ($138.4m), or by 36.8% organically. Operating profit was down 27.6% at €211m. The Bruichladdich whisky owner posted an 18% decline in full-year sales to €984.6m.

It was the second successive year when sales and earnings declined. Rémy Cointreau was hit by falling Cognac sales amid a struggling category in the US – one of the two biggest markets for the spirit – and pressures in China, the other principal destination.

The company has sought to point to positive signs for its Cognac business in both markets. In the Americas, fourth-quarter sales “rebounded sharply”, particularly in the US. Rémy Martin, the group added, had gained market share in China despite the “persistently challenging market conditions” in the country.

Marilly will take the reins as CEO as Rémy Cointreau nears the end of the first quarter of its new financial year and the market’s eyes this week were on the company’s thoughts for its 2025/26 fiscal period.

The Cointreau liqueur maker expects sales to return to “mid-single-digit growth on an organic basis”.

It said the recovery would be “driven primarily by a strong technical rebound in sales to the United States” starting in the first quarter.

However, in a sign of the macro uncertainty hanging over Rémy Cointreau’s Cognac business, its guidance for its "current operating profit" came with a caveat. Tensions over tariffs, not just on imports to the US but on EU brandy shipments to China, meant Rémy Cointreau’s projection for current operating profit was for growth “in the high single-digit to low double-digit range” – but “excluding any increase in customs duties in China and the United States”.

At the moment, the company’s “worst-case scenario” is for the potential increase in tariffs to amount to €100m gross.

Alongside the publication of Rémy Cointreau’s full-year profits yesterday, the company became the latest major distiller to withdraw mid-term guidance.