--- title: "Guinness owner cuts 2,000 jobs as ‘Drastic Dave’ drives turnaround" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/296261535.md" description: "Diageo, owner of Guinness, cut nearly 2,000 jobs last year as CEO Sir Dave Lewis implements a cost-cutting turnaround strategy. The company spent $514m on redundancy payments while aiming for $1bn in annual savings. Despite revenue falling 3% and operating profit plunging 27%, Guinness sales rose 12%. Lewis is adjusting pricing strategies to revive spirits brands." datetime: "2026-08-18T19:10:01.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/296261535.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296261535.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/296261535.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # Guinness owner cuts 2,000 jobs as ‘Drastic Dave’ drives turnaround Guinness’s owner cut nearly 2,000 jobs last year as its new chief executive, Sir Dave Lewis, took an axe to spending. Diageo, which also makes Johnnie Walker whisky, saw staff numbers fall by 6.4pc for the year ending June as Sir Dave launched a turnaround drive to revive the company’s fortunes. Figures published in Diageo’s annual report on Tuesday showed it had 27,938 full-time employees in June – 1,922 fewer than the 29,860 it boasted a year earlier. Diageo did not say how many of the jobs lost were redundancies, but it spent $514m (£380m) on redundancy payments during the year, up from $73m last year. Sir Dave, known in business circles as “Drastic Dave” for his cost-cutting approach, has embarked on a significant overhaul of Diageo since taking charge in January. This has included plans to find $1bn of annual savings through initiatives such as trimming duplicate head office roles across its global, regional and local teams. The scale of the task is stark. Diageo’s revenue fell 3pc to $19.6bn last year, while operating profit plunged 27pc to $3.2bn. The 61-year-old earned the “Drastic Dave” moniker for his cost-cutting drive at Tesco, which he led between 2014 and 2020. During his time there, he closed stores and cut thousands of jobs as he sought to revive its fortunes. At Diageo, he has not put a number on the jobs that will be lost in his latest overhaul. Next year, Sir Dave stands to receive £14.25m in annual pay if he succeeds in turning the business around, according to the annual report. His salary is £1.5m, while he can earn a bonus worth up to £3m and long-term incentive shares worth up to £9.75m under Diageo’s proposed new pay policy. He received £1.43m for the six months he spent as chief executive during the last financial year, including a £528,000 bonus. One third of that bonus will be deferred into shares for three years. Sir Dave said cutting spending would allow Diageo to invest in brands with greater growth potential rather than simply boosting profits through cuts. “We’re going to double the capacity of Guinness during the course of this plan,” he said earlier this month. Guinness sales rose 12pc last year, making it one of the few bright spots as the wider drinks market struggled. Sir Dave has also admitted that Diageo pushed up prices too much after the pandemic, contributing to a decline in sales of its spirits brands. “Some of the pricing through Covid-19 and thereafter has got a little bit out of whack,” he said. “What we’ve done in the last few months is take Bell’s back to where we think it ought to be, and we’ve seen a volume response.” ### Related Stocks - [DEO.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/DEO.US.md) - [DGE.UK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/DGE.UK.md) - [TSCO.UK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSCO.UK.md) - [TSCDY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSCDY.US.md) ## Related News & Research - [CMH Wealth Management LLC Sells 11,413 Shares of Diageo plc $DEO](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297618931.md) - [Guinness owner drops responsible drinking targets from boss’s bonus](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297656061.md) - [THREE LEGENDS. THREE MORE YEARS. GUINNESS IS RUNNING IT BACK WITH NOTRE DAME AND JOE MONTANA | DEO Stock News](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297068170.md) - [‘Drastic Dave’ to slash Guinness owner’s costs by £750m](https://longbridge.com/en/news/295099959.md) - [Will this Watson Wednesday be Driven by Wheat or Whisky?](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297035636.md) --- > **Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.**