Altadis

The Altadis S. A. is a Spanish- French tobacco company. It is the third largest company in the European market for cigarettes and cigars as the world's number one manufacturer. Altadis has 300,000 points of sale in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Morocco also a unique European distribution network for tobacco products. It was acquired in February 2008 by Imperial Tobacco.

Altadis has more than 28,000 employees. Total sales amounted to 4.11 billion euros in 2005.

Founding and history of the company

Altadis is formed from the merger of the two tobacco companies Tabacalera (Spain) and Seita (France) in 1999.

From 2007 to 2008, a bidding war the group was held in which ultimately placed the bid of the British rival Imperial Tobacco against those of financial investors CVC Capital Partners and PAI Partners.

Products

• Fortuna
• Ducados
• Gitanes
• Gauloises