Jump to full article: Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, 2009-01-07
Author: JOHN REID BLACKWELL TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Intro: The top cigarette company in the nation is also its top seller of smokeless tobacco.
Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc., the parent company of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, said yesterday that it completed its $10.4 billion acquisition of UST Inc., maker of the top-selling premium moist snuff brands Skoal and Copenhagen.
The acquisition, which includes the assumption of $1.3 billion in debt, gives Altria a leading position in the growing smokeless-tobacco category and a platform for potential growth as cigarette consumption declines in the United States.
Altria has said the smokeless category, worth $3.7 billion in the U.S. in 2007, has grown 6 percent or 7 percent in the past two years.
UST's operating units -- its smokeless-tobacco business and its premium-wine subsidiary, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates Ltd.-- are subsidiaries of Altria, which is planning to cut about $250 million in expenses by combining administrative functions.
The integration plan includes closing UST's Stamford, Conn., headquarters by the end of this year and moving the management operations to Altria's headquarters annex on West Broad Street
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