British American Tobacco

In August 2003, BAT acquired a 67.8% holding in the Serbian tobacco company Duvanska Industrija Vranje (DIV), allowing local manufacture of its brands, freeing them from import duties. In the longer term, export opportunities are planned as neighbouring countries in south east Europe developed free trade agreements.

In July 2004, the U.S. business of British American Tobacco (Brown & Williamson) was combined with that of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (R. J. Reynolds), under the R. J. Reynolds name. R. J. Reynolds and Brown & Williamson were the second and third-ranking U.S. tobacco companies prior to the combination. When they combined, R. J. Reynolds became a subsidiary of Reynolds American, with BAT holding a 42% share.

In January 2007, BAT closed its remaining UK production plant in Southampton with the loss of over 600 jobs. However, the global research and development operation, and some financial functions, continue on the site. Then in 2008, BAT acquired Turkey's state-owned cigarette maker Tekel. In July 2008, BAT acquired the cigarette and snus operations of the Scandinavian Tobacco Group. BAT acquired 60% of Indonesia's Bentoel Group in 2009 before increasing its stake to 100% the following year. In May 2011, BAT acquired the Colombian company Productora Tabacalera de Colombia S.A.S. (Protabaco). In October 2015, BAT acquired the Croatian tobacco company TDR d.o.o. Brands and Factory in Kanfanar.

In October 2016, BAT offered to buy the remaining 57.8 per cent of U.S. cigarette maker Reynolds American in a $47 billion takeover that would create the world's biggest listed tobacco company with brands including Newport, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall. In January 2017, Reynolds agreed to an increased $49.4 billion deal. The deal was completed in July 2017. In April 2017, the company announced the acquisition of a number of Bulgarian cigarette brands from Bulgartabac for more than €100 million.

In March 2021, the company bought a stake of close to 20% in the Canada-based cannabis producer OrganiGram for about £126 million as part of a diversification strategy.

In May 2023, the company's chief executive, Jack Bowles, resigned with immediate effect. He was replaced by Tadeu Marroco, who had been finance director for four years. On 14 September 2023, the company announced the sale of BAT Russia to a consortium led by local management. BAT Russia changed its name to the International Tobacco Marketing Services Group.

In June 2026, the company announced it would cut 5,500 jobs and outsource a further 3,500, approximately 20% of its 47,000 strong workforce. It was expected this would save about £600m a year by 2028. Chief executive Tadeu Marroco said these cuts would make the company "more agile, cost disciplined and technology enabled".

Former

BAT has diversified into various fields at different times in its history. Its U.S. retail division, BATUS Retail Group, acquired Gimbels, Kohl's, and Saks Fifth Avenue in the 1970s and Marshall Field's and its divisions in 1982. It purchased the United Kingdom retail chain Argos in 1979. The company sold Kohl's grocery stores to A&P in 1983. In 1986, BATUS sold the Kohl's department stores and two Marshall Field's divisions, The Crescent and Frederick & Nelson; BATUS closed Gimbels the same year, with many locations being absorbed by sister division Marshall Field's, as well as Allied Stores' Stern's and Pomeroy's divisions. In 1990, Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target Corporation) purchased Marshall Field's, Dillard's purchased Ivey's (another Marshall Field's division), Investcorp S.A. purchased Saks Fifth Avenue, and Argos was demerged (Argos was acquired by previous parent company GUS plc in 1998).

The Group was a major financial services company with the acquisitions of Eagle Star (1984), Allied Dunbar (1985) and the Farmers Group, Inc. (1988). Around 1996 British American Tobacco merged its financial operations into a single operating unit, British American Financial Services (BAFS). This division merged with Zurich Insurance Company in 1998 to form the Zurich Financial Services Group.

Corporate affairs

The company's board is chaired by Luc Jobin, appointed in 2021. Its non-executive board members are Holly Keller Koeppel, Kandy Anand, Karen Guerra, Murray Kessler, Véronique Laury, Darrell Thomas and Serpil Timuray.

British American Tobacco spent more than €700,000 lobbying the EU in 2008, up to four times as much as the company declared on the EU's register of interest representatives, according to a report by Corporate Europe Observatory. The report argues that BAT's hidden lobbying activities, which are clearly not in the public interest, should be exposed to public scrutiny.

Canadian class action lawsuit

The three largest Canadian tobacco companies, Imperial Tobacco Canada (a division of British American Tobacco), JTI-Macdonald Corp and Rothmans Benson & Hedges, were the subject of the largest class action lawsuit in Canadian history. The case started on 12 March 2012 in Quebec Superior Court, and the companies face a potential payout of C$27 billion (US$21.6 billion) in damages and penalties. In addition, a number of Canadian provinces are teaming to sue tobacco companies to recover healthcare costs caused by smoking.

On 1 June 2015, Quebec Superior Court Justice Brian Riordan has awarded more than $15 billion to Quebec smokers in a landmark case that pitted them against three Canadian cigarette giants, including JTI-Macdonald Corp.

Australian lawsuit

In 2012, British American Tobacco, along with Philip Morris International and Imperial Tobacco, sued the Australian Commonwealth government. At the High Court of Australia, they argued that the Commonwealth's plain packaging legislation was unconstitutional because it usurped the companies' intellectual property rights and good will on other than just terms. However, the challenge was unsuccessful.

HMRC fine for oversupply

In November 2014, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) fined BAT £650,000 after it determined that the company glutted the Belgian market with tobacco products with the likelihood these products would illegally find themselves back into the UK, with UK excise taxes not paid. The event highlighted a tobacco-smuggling issue that many anti-tobacco activists have been attempting to bring to light for years. Following several investigations, HMRC reportedly seized more than 1.4 billion cigarettes and 330 tons of hand rolling tobacco in 2013–2014. BAT denied all claims and described the allegation and fine as "unjustified".

Bribery and threats in Africa

In late November 2015, an episode of BBC's Panorama programme alleged that BAT was bribing officials in Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya in exchange for their limiting the implementation of the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in their respective countries. The episode showed documents provided by whistleblower Paul Hopkins, who worked for BAT in Kenya for 13 years. BAT denied the claims.

In 2017, it was reported that BAT and other tobacco companies used a mixture of threats and bullying behaviour to stop or lessen the implementation of anti-smoking legislation in at least eight African countries. One document showed that in Uganda BAT stated that the Tobacco Control Act flew in the face of the country's constitution. Another document showed that lawyers acting on behalf of BAT requested that the high court in Kenya "quash in its entirety" anti-smoking legislation.

The Serious Fraud Office opened a 'formal investigation' in August 2017 based on the dossier of evidence supplied by former employee and whistleblower Paul Hopkins. The formal investigation is based on claims by Hopkins that BAT had paid bribes to government officials in Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Comoros to undermine tobacco control regulations in the African market which is the only market showing growth. BAT responded by classifying Hopkins as "a rogue former employee". BAT Chief Executive Nico Durante said BAT operated in 200 countries and he could not give a 100% guarantee that everything was being done by the book.

In January 2021, the Serious Fraud Office closed its investigation into corruption at BAT after concluding that the evidence gathered “did not meet the evidential test for prosecution as defined in the Code for Crown Prosecutors”.

On 14 September 2021, in a report published by the NGO STOP, the NGO accused British American Tobacco of having distributed more than $600,000 in the form of cash, cars or campaign donations to dozens of politicians, legislators, civil servants, journalists and employees of competing companies between 2008 and 2013.

In November 2012, the Zimbabwean government arrested several people for spying on factories owned by local tobacco companies, including Pacific Cigarette Company (PCC). BAT's involvement was suspected but not proven. Later that month, President Robert Mugabe accused BAT of spying and hijacking PCC trucks to "kill competition". In September 2021, a BBC Panorama investigation found evidence that BAT had enlisted Forensic Security Services, a South African Security firm, to sabotage and surveil factories owned by competitors, including PCC. After the spies were arrested, BAT negotiated a bribe so that the government would release them from jail.

Pakistani lobbying efforts

In April 2015, medical experts and anti-tobacco campaigners accused Philip Barton, the British High Commissioner to Pakistan, of lobbying for BAT interests. The group released photos showing Barton attending a meeting on 13 March in Islamabad, where BAT executives attempted to convince the Pakistani Finance and Health Minister to veto plans requiring large health warnings on cigarette packets. This activity was deemed contrary to Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) policy. It followed an earlier incident when the British Ambassador to Panama was reprimanded for similar activity on BAT's behalf.

Tobacco marketing in unstable nations and conflict zones

In August 2017, former employee and whistleblower Paul Hopkins released internal documents to The Guardian, a British newspaper, claiming British American Tobacco actively made efforts to market and sell its products in unstable, deeply impoverished nations and conflict zones, including Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Iraq. Leaked PowerPoint presentations from 2011 included details of strategies to continue selling black market cigarettes "in black paper bags" in parts of Somalia controlled by the fundamentalist Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab, plans to develop "a consumer relevant brand portfolio" and "sustainable... volume growth" in South Sudan just two days before the nation gained independence, and the active marketing and growth of the Kent cigarette brand in Iraq and Syria, despite "volatile markets" in the middle of the Iraq War and Syrian Civil War, respectively.

In February 2021, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (OCCRP) published an investigation according to which trafficking of BAT cigarettes had helped finance jihadist and separatist groups in northern Mali using, among other mechanisms, a system of oversupplying the country with tobacco. This has allowed billions of cigarettes to be smuggled out of the country.

In April 2023, a subsidiary admitted that it had sold cigarettes to North Korea. This act is a violation of the existing sanctions imposed by the US against North Korea. Based on the investigations of US authorities, the activity spanned for ten years, from 2007 to 2017. Because of this breach, BAT is obligated to pay $635m (£512m) and interests to US authorities. Attorney General Matthew Olsen, Department of Justice's assistant described the settlement fee as DOJ's first and largest single North Korean sanctions penalty.