22 Facts About Diageo

Diageo plc is a multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in London, England.

Diageo has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Diageo is an invented name that was created by the branding consultancy Wolff Olins in 1997.

Diageo was formed in 1997 from the merger of Guinness Brewery and Grand Metropolitan.

Shares in Diageo began trading on the London Stock Exchange on 17 December 1997.

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Diageo owned Pillsbury until 2000 when it was sold to General Mills.

In 2002, Diageo sold the Burger King fast food restaurant chain to a consortium led by US firm Texas Pacific for US$1.

In February 2011, Diageo agreed to acquire the Turkish liquor company Mey Icki for US$2.

Since 2011, Diageo has had a controlling stake in the parent company Sichan Chengdu Shuijingfang Group Company, which it bought outright in 2013.

In October 2015, Diageo announced the sale of most of its wine business to Treasury Wine Estates.

In February 2017, Diageo announced plans to open a Guinness brewery and tourist attraction in Baltimore County, Maryland.

In February 2018, Diageo announced plans for limited edition bottles of its 12-year-old Black Label blended whisky named Jane Walker, as opposed to Johnnie Walker, to be sold.

In October 2021, Diageo announced plans to invest $500m to expand its manufacturing in Mexico for the tequila category.

In October 2022, it was announced Diageo had acquired the Australian cold brew coffee liqueur brand, Mr Black.

Diageo operates in 180 countries across five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 2009, Diageo announced that it was closing the Henrietta Place facility as part of a cost reduction programme and moved its employees to the Park Royal site.

In December 2003, Diageo provoked controversy over its decision to change its Cardhu brand Scotch whisky from a single malt to a blended malt whilst retaining the original name and bottle style.

Diageo took this action because it did not have sufficient reserves to meet demand in the Spanish market, where Cardhu had been successful.

In July 2009, Diageo announced that, after nearly 200 years of association with the town of Kilmarnock, Scotland, they would be closing the Johnnie Walker blending and bottling plant as part of a restructuring to the business.

On 9 May 2012 Scottish craft brewery BrewDog revealed that Diageo had threatened to withdraw funding from the British Institute of Innkeeping Scotland's annual awards if BrewDog was to be named winner of the Best Bar Operator award.

In November 2016, Diageo announced its intention of selling at auction Sir Edwin Landseer's iconic 1851 painting The Monarch of the Glen – which the company owns, but which has been on loan to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh since 1999 – as it has "no direct link to our business or brands".

In July 2017, Diageo was accused of using its huge influence over Irish publicans to pressure some based in Cork city into swapping craft beer taps offering Irish-produced craft beer for Diageo beer brands, after several such pubs all did so over the course of one weekend.