Pernod Ricard reports net sales in its fiscal third quarter plunged 15% in Euro 1.945 billion from Euro 2,278 billion and 15% for its first nine months, to Euro 7.199 billion from Euro 8.454 billion.

That's not the way it headlined its earnings release Thursday (4/15) morning, of course. The French company, which is seeking to acquire Brown-Forman Corp., highlights "a sequential improvement in Organic Net Sales in Q3 compared to H1, with total group volumes in Q3 back to growth at +4%, and with Strategic International Brands’ volumes growing +3%. When excluding the US and China markets which contracted in Q3 -12% and -7% respectively, Q3 Organic Net Sales in the rest of the world are growing strongly at +5%."

To its credit, it acknowledged that even organic growth was anemic in the third quarter, up just 0.1%. In the Americas, sales fell 8% in the fiscal third quarter, 10% in the first nine month. That was better than in the U.S., where sales were down 12% and 14% respectively Undoubtedly, much of the U.S. decline can be attributed to President Trump's tariffs.

This becomes especially evident when one looks at Asia/Rest of World, where sales were up 6% for the third quarter, 2% for the first nine months, Europe (+1%/-2%), and Global Travel Retail (+11%/+2%).

But as was the case with LVMH, sales in China were down. For Pernod Ricard, the decline amount to – 7% for its third quarter and 24% in the first nine months.

Looking toward the future, Pernod Ricard said that "Given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, we now expect organic net sales to decline by -3% to -4% for the full year." Over the next three years it said it projects annual organic net sales growth of 3% to 6|% and is targeting spending 16% of sales on advertising and promotion.