Page 29 - Drambuie case study

For Parnell the objective was to build a platform of

profitability of between £1.5 m and £2m by the end of his

first year in office. As he put it:

“We have to think longer term than this company has done

before. When Cointreau repositioned itself, it had to invest

for 10 -12 years to turn things around…this is all about

increasing shareholder value and those shareholders are

the MacKinnon family.” Parnell

Parnell's target was to achieve case sales of 400,000 within

three years with the primary focus being the US. In the past

30 years the US market had declined from 400,000 cases to

80,000. To achieve this he envisaged eliminating anything

impacting on the managing of Drambuie. To this end his

strategy was predicated on the retention of very few fixed

assets with the aim of delivering a shareholder value of

£60m plus. Moreover, the family had been given no

indication that they wanted to sell out.