Wheeling and Dealing: Big Tobacco Gets Bigger Still

[Kropotkin]

This morning's New York Times has an interesting article on the machinations of our friends the tobacco giants, including some major horse trading in ecig brands.


Reynolds American to buy Lorillard for $27.4 Billion
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07...-for-27-4-billion/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Somewhat surprisingly, the combined Reynolds-Lorillard will sell Blu, one of the leaders in the booming e-cigarette market to Imperial as part of the deal.

Imperial said it plans to pursue growth of the Blu brand internationally. Blu was introduced in Britain by Lorillard earlier this year.

Last month, a Reynolds subsidiary, R. J. Reynolds Vapor, announced plans to begin selling its own e-cigarette, known as Vuse, nationwide. It is now sold in about 15,000 stores.

As part of its investment, B.A.T. will continue to share technology with the combined company for the development and commercialization of next-generation tobacco products, including vapor products.

In a conference call on Tuesday, Susan Cameron, the Reynolds president and chief executive, called Vuse a “game changer” in the e-cigarette space. Since it was introduced in Colorado last year, Vuse has grown to take a 17 percent share in the e-cigarette market in that state.

“We are very confident that Vuse can continue to compete with Blu,” she said.

Quite an interesting development, I think.