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Rémy Cointreau SA
Rémy Cointreau makes and sells premium spirits, especially cognac and liqueurs, to drinkers around the world.
Rémy Cointreau is a French drinks company that sells the fancy stuff — the bottle you bring out for a celebration rather than the one you mix into a casual cocktail. Its crown jewel is cognac, the aged grape brandy from western France, sold mainly under the Rémy Martin name. It also owns the orange-and-cognac liqueur Cointreau, a cocktail-bar staple, plus a handful of other premium spirits and wines.
The business works like this: it buys grapes or young spirit, ages and blends it, bottles it, and ships it to wholesalers, retailers, bars, and duty-free shops. Customers pay extra because of the brand and the age on the label. Cognac is a slow product — it sits in oak barrels for years before it can be sold, which ties up a lot of money in inventory. The company also spends heavily on marketing, because in luxury spirits the story and the status matter as much as what's in the bottle. The big risk sits in China and the United States, its two most important markets. Chinese drinkers buy a lot of cognac as gifts and status symbols, so the business swings with the Chinese economy and with any change in import rules or taxes. That exposure has hurt lately: sales fell sharply in the fiscal year that ended in March 2025, and the company has been cutting costs and working through a glut of unsold stock. Rémy Cointreau is far smaller than the giants it competes with, such as Diageo and LVMH, which owns Hennessy, the world's biggest cognac brand.
A fun bit of history: the company is the product of a 1990 merger between two old French family drinks businesses, Rémy Martin and Cointreau. The Cointreau family's distillery traces back to 1849, and the orange liqueur recipe has barely changed since. Today the group stays focused on the high end — it sold off its champagne business and other cheaper brands to concentrate on premium spirits. When times are good, that focus pays off with fat profit margins. When a key market like China cools, there's less to fall back on.
Saved answer · last researched 9 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
Rémy Cointreau sells about 13% of the world's cognac by volume, ranking third
- 13% Global cognac volume share held by Rémy Cointreau
- 87% Cognac sold by other distillers
Cognac is the heart of this business: 61% of its sales in fiscal 2026 came from the spirit, and it is the world's third-largest distiller of it. Holding roughly 13% of global volume means the market is split among several big houses rather than dominated by one. That share is what lets a French family-controlled firm sell a premium drink far from home. Source: Morningstar, data from 2025
Timeline
A Cognac House Is Born
In 1724, a cognac house called Rémy Martin opened in France. It would take a very long time, but that name would one day sit at the heart of a global drinks group.
The Cointreau Brothers Start a House
More than a century later, in 1849, the Cointreau brothers founded their own spirits company. That made two separate family businesses, each with its own name and its own pride.
Two Families Join Their Holdings
For decades the Rémy Martin side and the Cointreau side were controlled by two family holding companies. In 1990 those holdings were merged, and suddenly the two famous houses were under one roof.
The Group Gets Its Name
The merged business needed a name that said what it was, so a year later it became Rémy Cointreau. The modern company now had a single identity.
Taking Back Control of Distribution
For years Rémy Cointreau shared the job of selling its drinks through a joint distribution venture called Maxxium. In 2009 it walked away and took direct control of most of its own distribution, which meant it could decide firsthand how its brands reached customers.
Selling the Champagne Business
Two years later the group sold its champagne division, including Charles Heidsieck and Piper-Heidsieck, to EPI. It kept distributing those champagnes for the new owner, so it stayed in the game without owning the cellars.
A Whisky Distillery Is Acquired
Next the group bought Bruichladdich, a single malt distillery on the Scottish island of Islay. That gave it a growth category beyond cognac, so it was no longer a one-drink story.
More Single Malts in France and the US
It kept building that whisky bet, buying Domaine des Hautes Glaces in the French Alps and Westland in Washington State. The two deals deepened its single malt range and widened its reach in both France and America.
A CEO Resigns Under Pressure
By 2025 the business was under real strain: the threat of huge US tariffs on European spirits, weak demand in China and a falling share price. CEO Éric Vallat resigned in April, and the group picked Franck Marilly, a luxury veteran from Chanel and Shiseido, to steady the ship and focus on the US and China.
The RC Forward Turnaround Plan
A year later, Marilly laid out a three-year plan called RC Forward. It aimed to lift operating profit by around €100 million, double sales in travel retail and emerging markets, and sell a cheaper Rémy Martin in the US through convenience stores and smaller bottles. Investors liked what they heard: the shares jumped more than 14%, even as the group reported an 11.5% drop in organic operating profit and cut its dividend in half.