{"id":323438,"date":"2026-03-01T13:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T13:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323438\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T13:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T13:11:07","slug":"should-diageo-sell-everything-else-and-change-its-name-to-guinness-plc-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323438\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Diageo sell everything else and change its name to Guinness plc? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It\u2019s not easy being a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/diageo\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/diageo\/\">Diageo<\/a> shareholder these days. A halved dividend, falling US sales, shrinking operating profits \u2013 investors really didn\u2019t like the company\u2019s latest results, with even a record one-day share price fall of nearly 13 per cent failing to tempt bargain hunters the next day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The one bright spot for the company was Guinness, with organic sales rising 10.9 per cent. Indeed, growth topped 15 per cent in North America, making it the fastest-growing beer brand in the market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">New chief executive Dave Lewis, known as Drastic Dave for his cost-cutting at Tesco, sounded genuinely impressed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI thought it was a phenomenally strong brand before I joined Diageo. Now I can see it from the inside, it\u2019s even stronger than I thought,\u201d he told investors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As well he might, given Guinness now boasts five years of double-digit growth and continues to gain market share in key regions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSell everything else except Guinness and change the name to Guinness plc,\u201d joked one FT commenter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An exaggeration? Just a bit \u2013 Diageo itself highlights both Guinness and Johnnie Walker as the \u201cstandout performers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Still, the sentiment is easy to understand, with Guinness being a rare source of positivity for Diageo in yet another decidedly sobering set of results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not easy being a Diageo shareholder these days. A halved dividend, falling US sales, shrinking operating profits&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,126032,6424,604,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-323438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dave-lewis","10":"tag-diageo","11":"tag-guinness","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}