Campari has a new one Ceo. Replacing Matteo Fantacchiotti, who resigned last September after only 5 months in office, will be Simon Hunt, veteran of the spirits industry. 30 years of experience, 14 of which spent at William Grant&Sons, the new manager will have the task of reviving the Italian company after a difficult period which led it to its lowest stock market price since the pandemic.
Italy’s most important spirits company has been in crisis since the beginning of 2024. Profit is down 5% with a 20% drop in the third quarter. The causes are both short-term, such as the bad weather which led wholesalers to stock less, and long-term, with the American and Asian markets in decline.
Who is the new CEO of Campari Simon Hunt
Campari managed to name a new CEO. After the surprise farewell of Matteo Fantacchiotti in September, just 5 months after his appointment, the most famous Italian spirits company in the world has overcome the transition period and chosen Simon Hunt. With 30 years of experience in the sector, a career that began at Diageo and continued in some of the most important brands in the spirits world, Hunt spent 14 years at William Grant&Sons, becoming CEO in 2016.
He then spent two years as a strategic consultant before returning to run a company, Catalyst Spirits, a brand accelerator in the spirits sector. One of the brands launched by this company, Howler Jead, was acquired by the Campari group in 2022. Hunt was chosen precisely for his familiarity with innovation and the relaunch of brands, a characteristic that the Italian group needs after the recent crisis.
“I am honored and excited to seize this extraordinary opportunity and look forward to collaborating with a talented leadership team such as that of Campari Group and with the entire organization to continue to consolidate the legacy and successes of the last decades, elevating the potential and ambition for the Group to grow to even higher levels,” he said Hunt. Campari shares rose on the stock market by 3.70%.
The Campari crisis and the challenges of the new CEO
Campari is not in a simple period. In the last year the Italian company’s profits fell by 5% to 423 million euros, with a very significant collapse in the third quarter (-20.4%), however caused by some economic factors. The real problems for the spirits giant are long-term ones.
Foreign markets have stopped growing and, on the contrary, they seem to be heading towards a decline. Both in the United States and in Asia, sales are not meeting expectations, and if the crisis in the East can be attributed to the slowdown of the Chinese economy, the USA is instead in full economic boom.
Sales are also decreasing at “home”. In Italy they fell by 7%, in Europe by 6%, above all due to the lower stocks made by wholesalers as a result of the bad weather. Fantacchiotti’s surprise resignation did the rest and the stock lost almost 40% of its value since January. The new CEO will probably have to outline a new strategy, with a focus on strategic brands and sales among those not at the center of the company project.
