Consumer goods analysts seem so obsessed with the woes of emerging markets such as China that they have taken their eyes off a more important market, the United States. This is Diageo’s biggest and most profitable region, and the subject of some disappointing observations from its head that have unsettled the shares this week.
The assumption had been that the recovering US economy, and cheap petrol prices, would be putting money into the pockets of consumers to be spent on consumer goods such as Smirnoff vodka and Captain Morgan rum, two of Diageo’s biggest brands.
For some reason, Larry Schwartz admits, this is not happening. Something similar seems to be occurring across the spirits industry, to judge from recent briefings from Pernod Ricard and