BRITISH -AMERICAN TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED
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British-American Tobacco was formed in Britain in
190Z
to take over the export business of the American
Tobacco C..
The Imperial Tobacco Co.(of G.B. & 1.)Limited,
Continental Tobacco
Go.. American Cigar Go., and Consolidated Tobacco
Co. At this
time all the manufacturing and distributing
facilities of theme companies
outs ide of the U. S. and U. K. we r e take n ove
r. Thewe in UK& iiner e
a "Ang-mlly acquired.
British4Amertcan Tobacco's management has been
efficient
and enlightened, with the result that the Company
in now one of the
five largest registered in the U.K. with assets of
over a billion dollars.
Part oftheir growth in owing to the management's
policy of operating
in so far an possible in the consuming country.
The result has been
that the Company has engendered good will and
avoided the worst
aspects of excessive nationalism and import
restrictions etc.
From the American point of view British-American
Tobacco's
policy of operating in the local marketiel area
has had the advantage
that with the growth of Imperial Tobacco of Canada
(in which
the Company has a nearly 50~', interest) 1~nd
Brown & Williamson
(wholly owned and the fifth largest factor in the
U.S. tobaccip industry)
0 _jwb& considerable part of the C arnpany'. as
sets are now held in North
America. In fact, If the Company's interest in I.
T. C. of Canada
were consolidated, which would bLave the effect of
pushing up the book
valse per B.A.T. common share to around $6. 9, we
estimate that
between Z5 and 30% of this value would be
applicable to North American
intVre.t..
The disadvantage has been that BritishAmerican
Tobacco
is liable to excessive nationalism (which has been
rrLitigatedbythe
CompanT's enlightened policies cited above) as was
shown when the
fhinese Communists nationalised its Chinese
subsidiaries in 195Z. It
*L4v4 Ohn% be mentioned that while profits did not
appear to suffer much.
profits th.at might have beenexpected in later
years were no longer
forthcoming from this source.
L14
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QD
BATCo document for Province of British Columbia 5
November 1999