Lessons from the successes of Patrick Ricard

Last week Patrick Ricard, chairman of the global drinks company Pernod Ricard, passed away at the age of 67.

Anyone who believes in the importance of entrepreneurship to the development of an economy should take note of his life. Anyone who cares about the future of Irish industry should examine his career too, because Mr Ricard was a key player in the rejuvenation and subsequent global success of Irish Distillers.

If Ireland is to prosper and remove the Troika yoke off its back, it needs to embrace the kind of thinking that defined Mr Ricard’s life. Brought up in an already successful business, he could easily have taken a laid-back approach to life and enjoyed the wealth created by his family.

Instead, he took over a business which was focussed on the French market and turned it in to one of the most significant drinks companies in the world.

After merging with Pernod in 1975, an acquisition spree followed in which he acquired Seagrams, Allied Domecq, Martell, and other key global brands. As part of that expansion strategy, he acquired Irish Distillers in 1988 and began a process of turning it into an important global brand. By marshalling marketing resources behind the Jameson name, Ricard turned a struggling collection of business lines into the fastest-growing whiskey brand on the planet.

So, what lessons are here for Ireland? The first is that a positive and optimistic approach to life has the potential to create growth in economic output and employment while producing wealth for shareholders. By engineering a strategy that delivers sequential multi- year increases in revenues and profits, a company can positively influence the economy in which it resides. Irish Distillers today is a company that acts with confidence (note its recent major investment in Midelton), a sharp contrast to the uncertainty that marked its existence before Pernod Ricard bought it.

A second lesson is that a management team led by an individual with an appetite for success and growth can focus an entire company on an agenda driven by expansion. If Mr Ricard had settled for a quiet luxuriant life within France, his company would not have entered the Irish drinks market, where it has become a positive force.

Compare that with companies that have limp ambitions and are content to hold what they have rather than investing for growth. The latter can appear to offer a safe haven from the hard realities of commercial life, but it is often a short-term palliative that expires when growing competitors eat your lunch.

The third lesson of Mr Ricard’s life is that Europe contains the guile, brainpower, and ambition needed to conquer global markets while creating wealth. Strong, cash-generating European companies will be a critical element in any prospect of Europe emerging from the banking quagmire in which it is stuck. Pernod Ricard is an example of how, despite the regulatory and cost disadvantages that often afflict European- based companies, a route to growth and success can still be carved out.

In the same week as Mr Ricard passed away, Kerry Group was confirmed as the largest company on the Irish Stock Exchange. The parallel between these two companies is notable. Both have enjoyed strong leaders who think complacency in a dirty word. Both emerged from profitable but small core enterprises. The two of them thought global for years.

We need to put companies like Kerry and Pernod Ricard in front of younger Irish people setting out on a career in the commercial world. They should understand from an early age that a culture of ambition and growth can be a healthy and progressive force in a society where pessimism and bleakness abounds.