It has been our long-held view that this combination would occur, primarily to align the interests of both parties in the distribution of iQOS in the United States, but also because of the potential for cost synergies, the ability to manage the world’s largest cigarette, heated tobacco, and vaping brands under one roof, and for PMI, the natural foreign-exchange hedge that U.S. distribution will bring. The combination of PMI and Altria would be a reversal of the decision to separate 11 years ago. In some ways, that strategy has become redundant: The class-action litigation risk that Altria was trying to isolate within the U.S. entity has eased, while value was arguably not created by separating the international business.
blaineonline.finance.blog 