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| C.A.O.: FROM BOUTIQUE TO CONGLOMERATE? |
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Page 1 of 2 Plus: Contraband tobacco problem grows in Canada Los Angeles, January 10 – When Cano A. Ozgener started his C.A.O. project in 1968, he was principally in the business of selling meerschaum pipes.He added humidors and then struck gold in cigars, eventually selling the company to ST Cigar Group – better known as Henri Wintermans – last year. But C.A.O. is hardly acting like a subsidiary. Rather, it could be at the point of a significant expansion by the Wintermans group in the large-cigar area. At present, C.A.O. markets about a dozen C.A.O.-branded lines now and makes a couple of blends under the C.A.O. name for Meier & Dutch, the wholesale arm of Cigars International. But its reach is expanding significantly. The company quietly announced last month that it had agreed to take over the distribution and marketing of the highly-regarded Torano Cigars portfolio, including not only the entire Carlos Torano and Casa Torano range, but also the high-profile Dunhill and Dunhill Signed Range brands which have been turned over to the Torano firm for production and marketing in 2007. The move leaves the Torano family to concentrate on its primary interests in farming and manufacturing. The move gives C.A.O. not simply its own brands to market, made mostly in Honduras and Nicaragua, but also the Torano lines, made in the same countries, with a full portfolio of flavors and presentation. What’s missing? Perhaps a more pronounced Dominican presence? The C.A.O. Vision line is made in the Dominican Republic, as is the standard Dunhill line. But could Wintermans – which had revenues of about $5.2 billion U.S. for its 2006-07 fiscal year and 13,640 employees – be thinking about acquiring a Dominican manufacturer, or the distribution rights to an under-performing brand that has a presence both in the U.S. and Europe? (Any ideas? We have some, but we’re not willing to say just yet . . .) Although Wintermans’ primary brand – Henri Wintermans Café Creme – is machine-made in the Netherlands, the company’s attention to detail in its manufacture equals that of many handmade cigar makers. Here’s C.A.O. president Tim Ozgener’s view of his first tour of the Wintermans factory from his “Ozblog” on the C.A.O. site: Henri Wintermans is our parent company and producer of our Café Crème cigar, so I was very excited to see the factory for the first time. If you have yet to smoke a Café Crème, they are machine made small cigars that are very popular in Europe. I arrived there by train and met up with CEO Rob Zwartz. We toured the factory and I was amazed by the way the Café Crème cigars are produced. There is so much technical detail that goes into making Café Crème and other Wintermans cigars. Café Crème is made with Indonesian tobacco and it is Henri Wintermans policy to age the tobacco for 18 to 24 months. It is very difficult to have the policy of storing tobacco that long, and most companies like Henri Wintermans do not do it. It is so difficult because storing all of that tobacco is very expensive, but I was not surprised to find that quality comes first and foremost for this company. To see so many bins full of tobacco in an aging room was stunning. |
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Did you know?
“"Clear Havanas" refers to cigars made in the U.S. but with tobacco imported from Cuba.
