Yesterday, less than six months after taking up the post, we learned of his departure, officially for personal reasons.
This was followed this morning by another announcement: that of the Garavoglia family, which controls Campari via its Luxembourg holding company Lagfin, and plans to acquire additional shares worth $111 million.

Let's hope their sense of timing is as good on the buy side as it is on the sell side. In August 2023, the family took steps to sell up to half its stake without losing control. The announcement came at a time when the share price was peaking. Since then, it has plummeted by 40%.

The group behind the eponymous drink, Aperol, Grand Marnier, Skyy vodka and Wild Turkey bourbon, among others, saw its stock valued at over forty times earnings. Sell high, buy low: the Garavoglia family have clearly made the old stock market adage their own.

Last December, Campari acquired Courvoisier. In addition to diversifying its catalog towards cognac, this acquisition - the largest in its history - was intended to provide Campari with an additional bridgehead in the United States, precisely where the economy is currently at its weakest.

Let's hope, however, that their sense of timing was also well inspired. In 2009, amid the ruins left by the great financial crisis, Campari bought Wild Turkey to break into the bourbon market. And rightly so, since sales of the Kentucky-based brand have since tripled.

That said, the stock's recent plunge isn't enough to impress MarketScreener's analysts. Depending on the source, the current valuation oscillates between x22 and x24 the profits expected this year. This represents a return to its historical average - an average subject to violent upward distortion during the pandemic.

Nor can we help observing that this is a return of the valuation to its low point of x20 earnings - a low point which, after all, remains its long-term center of gravity.

Campari also needs to prove that its ambitious external growth strategy will really create value. For the moment, nothing is less certain. Neither margins nor profitability have been improving for a long time. As for profits, they have not increased since 2017.