Sobering Disclosures From Brown Forman
We interrupt our recent string of posts about AI infrastructure costs to go back to tariffs and trade war pressures — because those are still a thing, as evidenced by today’s earnings release from liquor maker Brown Forman Corp . ($BF). The headline is that revenue for the company’s most recent quarter (its fiscal Q2 2026, ending on Oct. 31) declined 5 percent from the year-ago period to $1.04 billion. Operating income dropped 10 percent to $305 million, and EPS was down 14 percent to $0.47 percent Dig beneath the surface, however, and we quickly find that tariffs are driving a significant portion of those declines. First is this narrative disclosure in the earnings release: In a challenging economic environment, net sales in the Developed International markets declined 4% (-6% organic), though improved sequentially. The decline was driven by the absence of American-made beverage alcohol from retail shelves in most of the Canadian provinces and lower volumes of Jack Daniel’s Tenn...