Member Article

Tobacco giant buys Manchester e-cigarette firm

Tobacco giant, British American Tobacco (BAT), bought into the electric cigarette market on Wednesday with the acquisition of CN Creative.

CN Creative develops, manufactures and sells electronic “Intellcig” cigarettes as a tobacco free alternative to smoking in 24 international markets, and has its own R&D space in the North West of England.

The Manchester-based company was bought for an undisclosed sum, however reports have speculated that the price could be costing BAT tens of millions of pounds.

Kingsley Wheaton, director of corporate and regulatory affairs at BAT said: “Our core business is, and will remain in, tobacco but we’ve always made it clear that our goal is to provide those adult smokers who are seeking safer alternatives to cigarettes with a range of reduced-risk products that will meet their varying needs.

“And we believe the innovative e-cigarette technologies that CN Creative has been developing over the past few years will help us move closer to achieving this goal.”

The e-cigarette firm said it has several new technologies in development stages that also add to the value of the business.

BAT added that this deal was a “natural extension” of its strategy to tackle the damage caused by tobacco, and this approach has been developed over several years.

CN Creative’s founders, Chris Lord and David Newns added: “This is an exciting opportunity that allows us to accelerate the development and successful launch of our innovative and new e-cigarette technologies”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .