| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Marketing and importing |
| Founded | 1884 |
| Headquarters | Ultimo, New South Wales, Australia |
| Key people | Fernand Levic (founder) Garry Browne - CEO |
| Products | Distributes original brands such as Mentos, and non-company brands such as Werther's Original (for August Storck KG) |
| Employees | 155 |
| Website | http://www.stuartalexander.com.au/ |
Stuart Alexander is an Australian-based international marketing and importing company, known for importing and marketing such brands as Werther's Original chocolates, and Mentos breath mints. The company was founded by Fernand Levic in 1884. It is headquartered in Ultimo.
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Stuart Alexander and Co. traces its roots back to 1884, when 23-year old Fernand Levic, a native of Alsace, France founded the business. In his twenties, he sailed abroad searching for the opportunity to start his business. While travelling on his way to Ceylon, Levic was persuaded by the ship's captain that the colonies offered greater opportunity, so he disembarked at Sydney. That same year he began to import cigars from Cuba, Switzerland, and the Philippines. His first representative was Charles Stuart Alexander, and together they went about developing the Australian and Pacific markets for the company. At one point the company manufactured its own brand of cigarettes called Guinea Gold, at a factory in Redfern, a Sydney suburb. By 1900, the flourishing business began production on its own cigars, called Flour Mecurio.
Over the next several years the company began to expand and by 1908 was importing tobacco products from various companies in Great Britain, Egypt, Turkey and the United States and had also expanded its range of interests to include various consumer items such as perfumes, pharmaceutical and food products. In 1920, Levic retired from the company and rewarded Alexander, who over the years had been his most faithful employee, with a fifty percent share in the business for only 100 pounds!
Levic's 19-year old son, Gerard Levic, entered the business with his father's remaining fifty per cent share. By 1930 the company, now renamed Stuart Alexander and Co., had entered a period of great expansion of the trade of its tobacco products. As company manangement director Gerard would travel in both Australia and abroad looking to acquire more agencies for the company.
In 1936 Gerard passed the company's management duties to 21-year old George York, who had been employed as a messenger for the company as a teen in the early 1930s. He ran the company as its managing director and CEO, with help from assistants Lionel Mitchell and Wesley Browne until 1942, when he enlisted in the Australian Army during World War II. Primary management duties were partially transferred to Nita Shannon, a long-time employee with the company who had been with the business since 1912. Ms. Shannon assumed full management responsibility in 1945 upon the death of York, who was presumed to be dead, killed in action at Hamburg, Germany in 1944. Shannon remained with the company until her retirement in 1965. In 1946, Gerard Levic, who had been residing in Europe with his wife and child, returned to Australia to assume CEO management duties, again with help from Browne and Mitchell.
The company began serving as an agent for Henri Wintermans cigars that year and over the next twenty would continue to expand and increase its business.
In 1971, with Wesley Browne as CEO, the company headquarters moved from Rosebery, a Sydney suburb, helping to consolidate the business under one roof and develop new categories other than just tobacco and cigars. The revamped company launched Moccona coffee in 1975, and would later add products such as Guylian chocolates (1987) and Van Melle Brands, which produced the popular Mentos breath mints (1992).
In 1995 Wesley Browne, who had been employed with the company since the early 1940s, retired. Browne, who had been the company's CEO and management director, would be succeeded by his son Garry Browne. In 2002 the company acquired their second proprietary brand, Gourmet Biscuit brands, which include the products Luken & May and Bite Me! The company would also would take on the August Storck KG business of Germany, producer of Werther's Original chocolates, and one of the largest confectionary businesses in Europe. That same year both Lindt and Sprungli ended their longtime associations with Stuart Alexander and Co. In 1999, Douwe Egberts also ended its longtime association with Stuart Alexander and Co after 48 years.