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A new leader for LVMH’s Wines and Spirits division.<\/p>\n
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In early November, St\u00e9phane Portier replaced Laure Baume as CEO of Mo\u00ebt Hennessy France. The information, which was not officially announced, was revealed by the media outlet Meet & Match and confirmed by the company’s official records.<\/p>\n
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St\u00e9phane Portier will report to Jean-Jacques Guiony, CEO of Mo\u00ebt Hennessy since February 2025, and will be assisted by Alexandre Arnault, Deputy CEO of the division.<\/p>\n
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With dual degrees in management from the Institut Sup\u00e9rieur de Commerce de Paris and the Institut Fran\u00e7ais de la Mode<\/b> (IFM), St\u00e9phane Portier has been working in the world of wines and spirits and within the LVMH group since 2013. After serving as Director of Development in China, then Asia Pacific and Global Retail at Hennessy, he joined Mo\u00ebt Hennessy in 2018 as Director of Global Distribution Development and, from 2021, as Director of Partnerships for Ros\u00e9s de Provence. In early 2023, he became Commercial Director CP (professional channel) at Mo\u00ebt Hennessy Diageo France.<\/p>\n
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Before this shift to wines and spirits, St\u00e9phane Portier spent ten years in the beauty market at L’Or\u00e9al in international marketing and then in Travel Retail in the EMEA region, followed by almost four years at Payot as international director.<\/p>\n
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According to Meet & Match<\/b>, \u201cin an environment of normalizing demand and increased pressure on channels,\u201d this appointment<\/b>, \u201csupported by Laure Baume and Alexandre Arnault,\u201d \u201caims to consolidate the fundamentals: commercial discipline, clarity for partners, team cohesion, and preservation of the Houses’ influence<\/b>\u201d and \u201csends a signal of stability and rigor, positioning France as a strategic base where value is now built through quality of execution as much as through growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This announcement comes at a difficult time for Mo\u00ebt Hennessy<\/b>.<\/p>\n
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Wines and spirits<\/b> were LVMH’s worst-performing division in 2025, with a 9% drop (on a reported basis) in sales to \u20ac20.36 billion and a 25% plunge in operating profit to \u20ac1 billion. The group thus confirmed \u201cthe slowdown in demand observed since 2023 after several exceptional years.\u201d LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault highlighted the \u201cdifficult context, particularly for cognac, which is affected in China and the United States by customs duties that have exceeded our forecasts,\u201d before indicating that he would try \u201cto reach an agreement in China.\u201d He also mentioned a \u201cslightly less buoyant\u201d champagne market and very good growth in ros\u00e9 wines.<\/p>\n
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On April 30, Jean-Jacques Guiony and Alexandre Arnault, referring to a \u201cvery difficult\u201d situation, unveiled to staff a plan to reduce the workforce of Mo\u00ebt Hennessy (Mo\u00ebt & Chandon, Ruinart, Veuve Clicquot, Krug, and Mercier champagnes<\/b>) by 13% and to concentrate marketing budgets on the world’s biggest brands.<\/p>\n
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On January 15, tensions were running high at the group’s champagne houses. Around 550 employees at Mo\u00ebt & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Krug, Mercier, and Ruinart walked off the job to protest the elimination of their profit-sharing bonuses in 2025.<\/p>\n
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However, an agreement on the payment of a bonus,<\/b> \u201camounting to a minimum of \u20ac3,300 per employee,\u201d was finally signed<\/b>, according to a statement issued by the CGT Mo\u00ebt & Chandon Ruinart<\/b> union. This outcome put an end to plans for a new protest rally scheduled for Tuesday in Paris…<\/p>\n
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