Less than eight months after being acquired by British giant Guinness PLC, employees of Louisville-based Glenmore Distilleries Monday found out their future is very bleak.
Guinness` United Distillers, which absorbed Glenmore into its operation last July, disclosed it will phase out over the next nine months not only that operation but its Schenley unit in Dallas as well. More than 200 jobs are involved, many in the sales and marketing sector.
United Distillers, a Stamford, Conn.-based firm, said that as part of a revamp, setting up separate units for its premium imported and popular-priced spirits, it will relocate not only sales and marketing but related financial operations of Glenmore and Schenley to the East.
United Distillers did not immediately say how many employees would be asked to make the move from Louisville and Dallas, but the number won`t be large, sources indicated.
Seventy-five employees are affected in Glenmore offices in Louisville
(not involved is a distillery in nearby Owensboro, Ky.); another 135 are affected at Schenley in Dallas.
The announcement hit Glenmore-based people like a ”thud,” sources said. Few Glenmore employees had expected it so soon, although a consolidation was anticipated eventually.
Guinness paid $103 million and assumed a debt of $58 million in acquiring Glenmore, a family-controlled distiller for 119 years. Glenmore Chairman James ”Buddy” Thompson reportedly received an estimated $11.6 million for his stake in the company.
Guinness acquired Schenley in 1987, which in this country has marketed such Scotch whiskeys as Johnnie Walker, Dewar`s and Bells.
By acquiring Glenmore, United Distillers picked up Fleischmann gin and vodka and Skol vodka, giving it a strong ”white goods” collection of brands, its other units already selling Tanqueray and Gordon`s, both gin and vodka.
Under the restructuring, a new United Distillers Glenmore unit is being formed in Stamford, with responsibility for popular-priced labels.
Manhattan-based Schieffelin & Somerset, an existing United Distillers unit that already sells Hennessy cognac, Moet et Chandon champagne and other premium wines and spirits, is picking up marketing for Dewar`s, Pinch and other single-malt Scotch whiskeys under the revamp.
Leo Burnett Co. here has been Schenley`s principal agency, its major assignment being Dewar`s. How Burnett will be affected by the realignment could not be immediately determined.
Cher: Equal`s new hawker
Fitness queen Cherilyn Sarkisian, a k a Cher, is going to work out for NutraSweet Co.`s Equal, a move that comes as no huge surprise because this tabletop sweetener has been a promotional sponsor of her new exercise video. You can catch Cher`s new 30-second commercials on ABC-TV`s ”Good Morning America” and NBC-TV`s ”Today Show” Wednesday. She`ll also be on prime-time TV in Ogilvy & Mather Chicago-created spots. Deerfield-based NutraSweet says it will be using Cher at least through the end of the year. Cher, who will be 46 in May, is said to have used Equal as a sugar substitute for some time. This brand has 30 percent of sweetener sales in food service. Equal does a better job at retail, holding down 52 percent of supermarket sales of sugar substitutes, which Information Resources Inc. tracked as a $214 million category for the 52 weeks ended Sept. 30. Cumberland Packing`s Sweet `N Low has 33 percent. Another factor: Alberto-Culver Co.`s Sugar Twin, with 5 percent.
Separately, WPP Group boss Martin Sorrell was in town Monday huddling with the troops at Ogilvy Chicago, and perhaps with the brass at other WPP units here, including J. Walter Thompson USA. You don`t suppose Sorrell paid a visit to Sears Merchandise Group-Ogilvy`s major client-to put out any potential fires there? Ogilvy still has a decent handle on client Sears, but the agency has seen a chunk of its broadcast media buying go out the door to Focus Media, a Studio City, Calif., firm. Moreover, a few agencies in town are licking their chops for a shot at doing at least creative work for Sears.
On the move: Lynne M. Brinker, an account supervisor at Leo Burnett Co., elected a VP. . . . Patrick H. Joyce appointed director of merchandising for Visual Marketing, the sales promotion/point-of-purchase advertising firm.
Strictly Personal: Birthday greetings to Frank Brenner, Bill Ogle and James W. Risley.
Former Chicagoan William Yonan, a 33-year veteran of Time Inc. Magazines and a former Chicago divisional sales manager of Time, has surfaced in the Midwest in retirement. He`ll do volunteer work as well as consulting at the Indiana University Student Foundation, a fundraising group, in Bloomington, Ind. His most recent job at Time was associate advertising sales manager.
Newspaper Association of America becomes the name of two industry organizations being merged July 1-the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Newspaper Advertising Bureau.
Appointment: Kaukauna Cheese Co., Little Chute, Wis., to Wheatley Blair for marketing communications, including public relations.
