The leadership crisis at Castel Group has taken a new turn after an attempt to remove Chief Executive Officer Gregory Clerc failed at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held on January 8 in Singapore. The vote, convened at the level of Investment Beverage Business Management (IBBM), is central to the group’s complex holding structure and was intended to strip Clerc of his mandates. Despite public confidence from parts of the founding family ahead of the meeting, Clerc remains in office.
The conflict pits Clerc against members of the founding family of Pierre Castel, now 99, notably his daughter Romy Castel and nephew Alain Castel. They argue that Clerc, appointed in 2023 after previously serving as the founder’s tax lawyer, has accumulated excessive power and pursued a strategy increasingly detached from family oversight. Clerc has consistently rejected these claims, stating that he was given a broad and explicit mandate by the founder to professionalise governance, consolidate reporting and strengthen investment capacity.
According to Bloomberg, Romy and Alain Castel said after the meeting that they were prevented from exercising their voting rights due to what they described as “delay tactics” and announced their intention to call another extraordinary meeting as soon as possible. Clerc declined to comment publicly on the outcome of the Singapore meeting, while reiterating earlier that his mandate is backed by the board of DF Holding, the Luxembourg-based entity that consolidates large parts of the group’s global operations.
The privately held Castel Group generated around EUR 6.5 billion in sales in 2024 across wine, beer, soft drinks and agricultural activities. While the group is well known in Europe for its vineyards and wine retail chains, its strategic weight lies in beer. Castel operates brewing and soft drink facilities in 22 African countries with some 61 beer brands, making it one of the largest and most influential brewing groups on the continent. The African beer business employs tens of thousands of people and is a key pillar of earnings, cash flow and dividend capacity.
The leadership dispute comes against a sensitive backdrop. Pierre Castel, long the public face and central decision-maker of the group, has largely stepped back in recent years. At the same time, the group continues to deal with the aftermath of a major tax ruling in Switzerland in 2023 that resulted in fines of more than EUR 350 million, while a separate tax investigation by French authorities remains ongoing. Clerc has told employees that significant work is underway to regularise historical tax and compliance issues dating from before his tenure.
For the global beer industry, the failed ouster does not resolve the underlying tensions. Instead, it prolongs uncertainty around strategy, governance and capital allocation at a group that plays a decisive role in many African beer markets. With the founding family signalling further legal and corporate action, the struggle for control at Castel Group appears far from over.
