Patrick Ricard (entrepreneur)

Patrick Ricard (1945 to 2012) was a French businessman who chaired and ran the wine and spirits group Pernod Ricard. After studying business in France, Germany and the United States he joined Ricard, the company his father Paul Ricard founded in 1932, worked through its main departments and became its managing director in 1972. When Pernod Ricard was created in 1975 he was appointed group managing director, and in 1978 he became chairman and chief executive. He is described as the architect of the group's strategy of growth through acquisition, which included the purchases of Seagram and Allied Domecq and raised sales outside France to about 90 percent of turnover, against 17 percent when the group was formed. In 2003 the French-American Chamber of Commerce in New York City named him Person of the Year, and he received French honours including Commander of the Legion of Honour in 2007. He died suddenly in Toulon in August 2012.