Campari chief’s sudden departure sets drinks industry fizzing

The chief executive of Campari Group has resigned after only five months on the board, causing a stir in the drinks industry.
The group said that Matteo Fantacchiotti was stepping down with immediate effect for personal reasons.
The board named joint interim chief executives to fill the gap pending the appointment of a successor. The interim CEOs are Paolo Marchesini, chief financial and operating officer, and Fabio Di Fede, general counsel and business development officer. They will join a leadership transition committee, to be chaired by Bob Kunze-Concewitz, the former CEO and now a non-executive director.
The committee, alongside the remuneration and appointment committees, will be responsible for identifying the new CEO to be proposed to the board. In another change, Jean-Marie Laborde, a board member, has been made vice-chairman.
Fantacchiotti’s brief spell at the top of the company was in contrast to that of Kunze-Concewitz, who had been in the seat since 2007. Fantacchiotti was Campari’s managing director for Asia Pacific before he was elevated to deputy CEO last year.
Analysts were left scratching their heads over his exit, with Cedric Lecasble, at Stifel, describing it as “puzzling”. He said it was all the more surprising given that the succession process after Kunze-Concewitz’s resignation had been “planned well in advance to be as smooth as possible”.
Fantacchiotti, 52, was announced as the future chief executive in September 2023 and officially replaced Kunze-Concewitz in April this year. The company refused to give any reason for his exit beyond “personal reasons”.
The analyst said that, with third-quarter earnings due on October 29, the news of the CEO’s exit would “raise uncertainty regarding the momentum of the business”. He pointed out that the share price had fallen just over a third since Fantacchiotti’s was anointed as future CEO.
On Wednesday, the share price of Davide Campari Milano, to give the company its full name, was down 7.4 per cent, or 56c, to €6.98 at close on Wednesday.
Fantacchiotti said it had been “a privilege for me to be part of Campari Group for almost five years and to lead this organisation since April 2024”.
He and Campari said they had “mutually agreed to proceed with termination of the current employment relationship”. The terms have yet to be revealed.
The resignation came a day after Campari completed the £69.6 million acquisition of a 14.6 per cent stake in Capevin Holdings, a South African company with interests in single malt whiskies such as Bunnahabhain, Tobermory and Ledaig, and blended whiskies Scottish Leader and Black Bottle.
In a busy time for mergers and acquisitions for Campari, in December it purchased the Courvoisier cognac brand and related assets from Beam Suntory, of Japan, for $1.2 billion.