Imperial Tobacco Seen Buying Altadis for $17.9B

Source from:  July 17 2007 NEW YORK (Reuters) 07/18/2007

Purchase of its rival will give Imperial the biggest cigar business by sales, a newspaper reports. Spanish cigarette and cigar maker Altadis SA has agreed to be acquired by Imperial Tobacco Group PLC for about €13 billion ($17.92 billion), according to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal. An acquisition of Altadis (Charts) would give Imperial (Charts) the world's largest cigar business by sales, according to The Journal. Private equity group CVC Capital Partners Ltd. Partners Ltd. had also pursued a takeover of Altadis, and earlier in July media reports said that CVC and Imperial might make a joint bid for the company. Enditem