Welcome in, today is Friday, August twenty-eighth, and we begin with Pernod Ricard's full-year numbers, reported by Shanken News Daily. Pernod Ricard closed its fiscal year with organic net sales down three point nine percent, to nine point four billion euros in the twelve months to June thirtieth. Shanken News Daily and The Manila Times both carry the figure, and that decline is worse than the three point seven percent analysts expected. The same reporting puts United States sales down fourteen percent and China down nineteen percent, and marks a third straight year of decline. Profit from recurring operations was two point four two billion euros, an organic drop of five point two percent, ahead of the five point nine percent fall expected. The dividend holds at four euros seventy. Guidance is where this reads through to planning. That reporting says fiscal twenty twenty-seven organic net sales should be broadly stable, with the U.S. and China still working through inventory, and medium-term growth now steered toward the lower end of a three to six percent range through twenty twenty-nine. Brewbound reports chief executive Alexandre Ricard pointed to ready-to-drink and smaller formats as where the company is looking for growth. Analyst reaction leans toward calling the decline uneven, a recurring argument being that stripping out the U.S. and China leaves the picture closer to flat. Following our earlier reporting on the Brown family letter, the merger question has an answer. The Lexington Herald Leader, citing Bloomberg, reports Pernod Ricard chief executive Alexandre Ricard said Thursday that a Brown-Forman combination is not back on the table, and that both companies are now focused on their own strategies. Per that account, talks between the two collapsed in April, and a report in May, credited to Seeking Alpha, had suggested Pernod might be willing to restart them. That closes off the outcome some heirs framed as Plan A in their letter, and leaves two live variables over American whiskey's consolidation question, the fifteen-billion-dollar Sazerac bid the heirs' letter says the board would not consider, and the chief executive search. The same reporting notes Brown-Forman posts first-quarter earnings on September second, with a successor to Lawson Whiting still unnamed. Reaction leans toward treating all of this as a governance story rather than a deal story. A forecast worth logging against your volume assumptions. Brewbound reports that RBC Capital Markets expects consumption among young drinkers to rise by the end of twenty twenty-seven. That is a bank's projection rather than measured data, and it cuts against the moderation assumption shaping a lot of category planning right now. We have the outlet's summary of that argument, not the full case. Near-term commentary leans skeptical, pointing to continued softness in United States drinking rather than an inflection, and a recurring counter-read holds that the shift is in occasion rather than volume, with at-home consumption and ready-to-drink formats described as holding up while beer, wine and spirits soften. Separately, in India. The Economic Times reports Varun Beverages, PepsiCo's bottler there for three decades, has approved a wholly owned subsidiary, KIVA Spirits and Company, to make ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages, subject to approvals. Per that filing, it carries paid-up capital of nine crore rupees, about one million dollars. Running it is Prathmesh Mishra, named chief executive and managing director. The same reporting says Mishra spent seven years as chief commercial officer at Diageo India and most recently led Diageo's Korea and Japan businesses, after fourteen years at Pernod Ricard India. That account also notes a fresh PepsiCo agreement lifted restrictions on which drinks businesses the bottler can enter, following a Carlsberg distribution tie-up in Africa. Industry reaction leans toward reading route-to-market muscle, not brand heritage, as the transferable advantage here. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Brewbound reports Sapporo USA will lay off fifty-eight Stone Brewing workers across three California facilities, effective October nineteenth, per an August nineteenth WARN notice filed with the state. Just Drinks reports Anheuser-Busch InBev has invested in production of its Cutwater spirits RTDs, a brand the company says is growing rapidly. Also from Just Drinks, Heineken plans a new city-centre brewery for its Eichhof brand in Lucerne, to better match actual demand, as part of a wider redevelopment of the Swiss site. And finally, Drinks International reports Chris Hemsworth has joined Australia's Archie Rose Distilling as co-owner alongside founder Will Edwards, ahead of the distiller's first United States entry.