In what was a difficult year for Australian liquor retail, Endeavour Group successfully delivered a stable trading performance, leaving it well positioned to “deliver improved returns to our shareholders once retail trading conditions start to recover.”
Additionally, 2024 also saw Endeavour Group unveil two new resources to increase transparency between suppliers and retailers, host more than 1,000 drinks industry representatives at its inaugural Supplier Summit, and announce Paul Carew as the new ALH Hotels Managing Director.
Here, Steve Donohue reflects on his final full year as CEO and Managing Director of Endeavour Group:
“Against a challenging economic and customer backdrop, I’m particularly proud of what the Endeavour Group team has achieved in 2024 - maintaining momentum in our core businesses and our position as Australia’s leading liquor retailer and operator of hotels - while still progressing our strategic initiatives, and living our purpose of ‘Creating a more sociable future, together’. This is a testament to all 30,000+ team members - in stores, in venues, in wineries, and in our support offices - that I am so proud to have led for the last six years.
Consumers remain value-focused in the face of hip-pocket pressure, while elevated supply chain costs and continued inflationary pressure on other operating costs are yet to abate. Our focus on price leadership and value has resonated strongly with our customers across Dan Murphy’s, BWS, ALH Hotels, supported by Pinnacle Drinks.
By creating meaningful experiences for our shared social customer and through our investments in our customer foundations, we drove performance in our core businesses and delivered the value our customers seek.
Effective investment in our omnichannel capabilities helped drive Active Members of our My Dan’s membership program up to 5.4 million, while Dan Murphy’s personalised offers delivered material sales uplifts. The launch of BWS ‘Appy Deals’ drove Monthly Active App Users up 155%, and BWS also added 500,000 new customers through ultra convenience partnerships.
In Hotels I am pleased to say that we launched the pub+ loyalty app, which will allow us to continually enhance guest experiences. We are absolutely focused on using data to ensure we are reaching our customers in the most effective and efficient way.
Pinnacle Drinks continues to be a market leader for product innovation and customer choice. We launched approximately 400 new products this year - which drove over half of Pinnacle’s sales growth - and won over 900 product awards.
In Retail, we continue to enhance our network, adding nine Dan Murphy’s and 18 BWS stores, while completing the renewal of 52 BWS stores and 16 Dan Murphy’s stores over the course of the year. In Hotels, we focussed on our strong renewal pipeline with 24 completed during the year, while acquiring two Hotels and divesting two at end of their leases.
We recognise that responsible, sustainable growth drives long-term shareholder value. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made against our commitment to leaving a Positive and Sustainable Imprint. In F24, we continued to focus on our foundations - resourcing, training, frameworks, controls and oversight - to better support our regulatory obligations and drive responsibility and compliance through our operations. This is reflected in improved metrics like a 92% completion rate for our unique Leading in Responsibility training across all our team members, and 44 million engagements with our customers during the year with responsibility messaging. There is more work to do; but sharing our performance and targets for improving responsibility metrics demonstrates our commitment to transparency and action.
And finally, as this will be my last Christmas with the business, I’m as invigorated as I was when I first started 30 years ago, and I look forward to supporting our teams and serving our customers this festive season and right through until I eventually pass the leadership of this great business to the next CEO."
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This article was written by Steve Donohue for Drinks Guide 2025, which will be distributed nationwide soon. If you would like a copy and are not currently on the Drinks Trade/Guide magazine mailing list, get in touch with the team now.
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