\n<\/p>\n
For more than 150 years, the Brown family has controlled Brown-Forman, the company behind Jack Daniel\u2019s. But that control is under real pressure right now, and some of the family\u2019s own members are responsible.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s stock has dropped 60% over five years as Americans drink less whiskey. Merger talks with France\u2019s Pernod Ricard<\/a> collapsed this spring, and crosstown rival Sazerac followed with an unsolicited $15 billion hostile takeover bid in May, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. The board rejected it.<\/p>\n Then came the letter. A few days before the family\u2019s annual July picnic, heirs W.L. Lyons Brown III and his brother Stuart sent a scathing seven-page missive to more than 130 relatives, accusing the board of keeping shareholders in the dark and \u201crewarding failure.\u201d One line compared Jack Daniel\u2019s expanding flavor lineup to Baskin-Robbins. \u201cBrown-Forman\u2019s stock price has fallen from the mid-$70s per share to the mid-$20s per share over the past three years, eliminating billions of dollars of generational wealth,\u201d the letter read. Three days after it went out, CEO Lawson Whiting told the board he\u2019d step down.<\/p>\n The brothers are outsiders in their family. They never joined Wolf Pen Branch, which controls 60% of Brown-Forman\u2019s voting shares and coordinates how the family votes as a bloc. They argued the board should have taken Sazerac\u2019s offer more seriously instead of pursuing the failed Pernod Ricard deal. Wolf Pen disagreed, publicly rejecting the Sazerac bid and saying it doesn\u2019t align with the family\u2019s vision for the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n For more than 150 years, the Brown family has controlled Brown-Forman, the company behind Jack Daniel\u2019s. But that control is under real pressure right now, and some of the family\u2019s own members are responsible.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s stock has dropped 60% over five years as Americans drink less whiskey. Merger talks with France\u2019s Pernod Ricard<\/a> collapsed this spring, and crosstown rival Sazerac followed with an unsolicited $15 billion hostile takeover bid in May, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. The board rejected it.<\/p>\n Then came the letter. A few days before the family\u2019s annual July picnic, heirs W.L. Lyons Brown III and his brother Stuart sent a scathing seven-page missive to more than 130 relatives, accusing the board of keeping shareholders in the dark and \u201crewarding failure.\u201d One line compared Jack Daniel\u2019s expanding flavor lineup to Baskin-Robbins. \u201cBrown-Forman\u2019s stock price has fallen from the mid-$70s per share to the mid-$20s per share over the past three years, eliminating billions of dollars of generational wealth,\u201d the letter read. Three days after it went out, CEO Lawson Whiting told the board he\u2019d step down.<\/p>\n The brothers are outsiders in their family. They never joined Wolf Pen Branch, which controls 60% of Brown-Forman\u2019s voting shares and coordinates how the family votes as a bloc. They argued the board should have taken Sazerac\u2019s offer more seriously instead of pursuing the failed Pernod Ricard deal. Wolf Pen disagreed, publicly rejecting the Sazerac bid and saying it doesn\u2019t align with the family\u2019s vision for the company\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n