US
British American Tobacco (BAT) has agreed to acquire Reynolds American in a US$49.4bn deal that will create the world’s largest listed tobacco company by sales.
The announcement of this major acquisition, which will bring BAT back to the US market, was made in mid-January, three months after BAT first made an unsolicited US$47bn bid to acquire the 57.8% stake in Reynolds it did not already own. BAT had previously folded its US subsidiary, Brown & Williamson, into Reynolds in exchange for a large minority stake.
BAT originally proposed paying US$20bn in cash and the remainder in its stock. At the time, while Reynolds was open to a deal, it wanted BAT to increase its cash-and-stock offer. BAT later sweetened the terms of the offer by offering US$24.4bn in cash and the rest in shares, and won over Reynolds’s board, valuing the US rival at more than US$85bn.Reynolds is the second-largest tobacco company in the US, behind Altria.