Jump to full article: Times Of London (uk), 2007-02-08
Author: Dearbail Jordan
Intro: Imperial Tobacco shares soared to a 10 year high on hopes that chief executive Gareth Davis’s mooted last big deal might be a bid for Imperial itself.
But they fell 2.5 per cent on today’s modest $1.9 billion acquisition of US discount cigarette maker Commonwealth Brands. Investors would have liked a deal with Altadis or a move into Turkey but predators will not be attracted by higher debt and the group’s first potential exposure to US anti-tobacco litigation.
. . .
America is the world’s most profitable tobacco market but this buy, Imperial’s first in the US after cigarette-paper maker Robert Burton, is not the one the market was looking for.
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