Lorillard purchases Blu E-Cigs

[Placebo Effect]

Lorillard, the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the U.S., has announced its purchase of Blu E-Cigs for $135 million in cash.

Blu Ecigs The Leading Electronic Cigarette Company Acquired By Lorillard

To say the least, this is very important news.

[Petrodus]

Very interesting ... BT finally jumps into the game.
Smart move ... Why compete when you can buy a successful
well established e-cig company. Lots of implications and possibilities
here.

[capt.n.coke]

Wow. I can only wonder where this is headed.

On one hand I can see that Lorillard may have the cash and experience to push a reduced harm product through the FDA.

On the other, this could be the start of a trend where more BT companies move in on ecigs. Ecig companies probably cost chump-change in the scale of BT's budget.


-C via mobile

[sqirl1]

I got a baaaaaaaad feeling about this........ I don't trust Blu, and now that big tobacco owns them, they're going to do EVERYTHING THEY CAN to screw us over. The Tobacco Control Act was mostly drafted by Phillip Morris to get rid of pesky competition like Djarum, you better believe that Lorillard is going to have secret talks with the FDA to do whatever they can to get rid of companies like V4L. They're going to get Juice banned, Online sales for sure since you can already buy blu at walgreens, now you can be sure they'll be available in just about every store that sells tobacco products meaning online sales just promote competition. Flavors they MIGHT go after, it just depends on how much money they make BT.

Either way, in short what this all comes down to is the FDA WILL regulate these now and they'll do it MUCH faster now that e-cigs are going to be associated with big tobacco.

[chinsk]

I think we all knew this was coming at some point in time. I have a feeling we will start to see a lot of things unfolding relatively quickly here.

[warlike36]

Who says they wont just shut the doors on there new e-cig company.

[Shiryo]

Yeah, I think it's thinking VERY optimistic to view this as a good thing, like them "improving" the outlook of PVs across the globe, etc.

I think it's more of what other big companies do to rising competitors... Buy them out to stay hush and then kill the company.

[Retriever]

I think they will just eventually do away with Blu. Maybe not, but a good way to eliminate the competition.

[kren]

This is very bad news. Even if Lorillard actually wants to get into the e-cig biz (which I doubt), the best-case scenario for us is regulated products (with all of the chemicals of analogs) at very high prices.

I thought this would happen down the line, but am very surprised at the speed here.

[TomCatt]

Very important ... and interesting news