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| IMPERIAL NOW SURE TO ACQUIRE ALTADIS |
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Page 1 of 2  Plus: Our Register & Win winner of the week!Los Angeles, January 23 – At the end of the offer period for Altadis shareholders to agree to sell their shares to Imperial Tobacco, the British tobacco giant reported that more than enough shares were tendered to allow the acquisition to go forward. “Valid acceptances were received in respect of 235,922,978 Spanish Stock Exchange Shares, representing approximately 93.5% of Altadis' total issued share capital,” said Imperial in a statement issued yesterday. Imperial offered 50 Euro per share for the takeover bid that will cost about 12.8 billion Euros (approximately $18.8 billion U.S.) in an offer which was supported by the Altadis board. The near-total agreement of the Altadis shareholders, above the 90 percent mark, will trigger an opportunity under Spanish law for Imperial to purchase 100 percent of Altadis’s outstanding shares in what is called a “squeeze-out” of the remaining shareholders. Altadis will be de-listed from the Spanish stock exchanges when the squeeze-out acquisitions have been completed. The purchase of Altadis combines the world’s fifth-largest tobacco company with Imperial, ranked no. 4 and will keep Imperial in fourth position. The combined companies will manufacture about 312 billion cigarettes a year. However, it will also make Imperial the largest cigar company in the world, owning half of Habanos, S.A., the worldwide distribution firm for Havana cigars and owning Altadis U.S.A., the leading cigar seller in the United States. Gareth Davis, chief executive of Imperial, has said that he likes all three of Altadis’s businesses: cigarettes, cigars and its logistics and distribution business. The latter has been the subject of speculation of a spin-off, possibly to a European private-equity firm. But Davis has given no indication that it has any interest in the cigar business other than to keep it and run it. Imperial will make some minor changes in the combined businesses to comply with the requirements of the European Union, which said the combination will have too great a market share in rolling tobacco in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, in pipe tobacco in Finland and France, and cigars in Greece. The takeover should be completed in the coming weeks and some re-branding may be seen at the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers (IPCPR) convention and trade show in Las Vegas in July. Montecristos before there was Montecristo: After the full U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was instituted in 1962, Montecristos disappeared from the U.S. market and a very good cigar made first in the Canary Islands and later in the Dominican Republic called Montecruz was made by the exiled family that owned the Montecristo factory. |
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Did you know?
“Cigars were introduced to the American Colonies by British Col. Israel Putnam on his return from Cuba in 1762.
