(Updates with comments from Swedish Match)
Jump to full article: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, 2010-02-08
Author: Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires
Intro: Newport cigarette maker Lorillard Inc. (LO) announced Monday it will soon enter the market for moist smokeless tobacco products, but said that an earlier joint venture with Swedish Match AB (SWMA.SK) to develop a new product in the U.S. had been mutually terminated.
Moist smokeless tobacco is a type of tobacco product that is popular in the U.S. and widely sold by companies like Altria Group Inc. (MO) through brands like Copenhagen and Skoal. Sales of these smokeless tobacco products have risen in the U.S. even as cigarette sales have dropped.
Lorillard didn't provide details of the new moist smokeless tobacco product it will sell in the U.S. but said that an existing joint venture with Swedish Match to develop a new "snus" tobacco product for the U.S. had been terminated. Snus is a nearly 200-year-old Swedish product. In 2006 Lorillard entered into a joint venture with Swedish Match North America to develop and study the possibility of marketing a tobacco product for the U.S. market called Triumph Snus.
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