London-headquartered Diageo, the planet’s largest purveyor of hard liquor, finally buried its legal dispute over the Captain Morgan rum brand with rival Brit spirits manufacturer Allied Domeq.
The rivals shook hands Wednesday on a deal that will see Allied dropping its ownership claim to Diageo’s Captain Morgan – currently contested in a Puerto Rican court – and buying the latter’s coconut-flavored rum Malibu for £560 million ($792.8m; €916.5m). Diageo will also sell its Mumm Cuvee Napa sparkling wine to Allied for £27.5m.
The deal hangs a question mark over the future agency location of Malibu, currently resident at J Walter Thompson, which Allied could decide to relocate to one of its own roster shops – among them BBDO Worldwide, Chicago (Stolichnaya, Beefeater and Kahlua) and dRush in New York (Sauza and Courvoisier).
Data sourced from: Wall Street Journal and AdAge.com; additional content by WARC staff
