Gallaher Group
The Gallaher Group plc. is a British tobacco manufacturer and wholesaler, part of JT International .
Gallaher was originally founded by Tom Gallaher in Londonderry , Northern Ireland in 1857 . In 1896, Gallaher built what was then the world's largest cigarette factory in Belfast .
The first IPO took place in 1928 and Gallaher grew in the following years through company acquisitions. Senior Service was taken over in 1936, JR Freemann in 1947 and Benson & Hedges in 1955 . The Silk Cut brand was introduced in 1963.
In 1968, Gallaher was taken over by American Tobacco . Another IPO took place in May 1997. The shares were traded in London and New York .
In 2000 Gallaher took over the Russian cigarette manufacturer Liggett-Ducat and was thus also represented on the Russian market. In 2002 Gallaher acquired Austria Tabak and became the market leader in Austria. Austria Tabak owns the tobacco wholesalers Tobaccoland Austria and Tobaccoland Hungary. In Germany, it holds a majority stake in Tobaccoland Automatengesellschaft and a 25.1% stake in Lekkerland GmbH & Co. KG.
Factories are maintained in Austria, the Canary Islands, the Dominican Republic, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the Ukraine and the UK. A total of around 12,000 employees work at Gallaher.
Gallaher is mainly active on the European market, but is also represented on Asian and African markets. In 2006 sales were £ 8.4 billion (2005: 8.2 billion), of which £ 5.66 billion (2005: 5.6 billion) was related to tobacco tax. The world's fifth largest tobacco maker had a 2006 pre-tax profit of £ 565 million (2005: 516 million).
On April 18, 2007, the renewed takeover of the Gallaher Group by Japan Tobacco was announced.