Davidoff Gets Bigger In Asia

Source from:  Cigar Aficionado 01/12/2015

The Davidoff Group continues to spread its wings abroad. This week, Oettinger Davidoff AG announced it had acquired a 25 percent stake in Bluebell Cigars (Asia) Ltd., the company's longtime Asian partner.

The move is one of many made by Davidoff in recent years to expand its global footprint. Last January, the company opened an office in Dubai, its first in the Middle East. In May 2013, the company opened a subsidiary in Moscow for sales, marketing and promotion and bought back its business in Spain, eyeing expansion in the world's largest market for Cuban cigars. The same month it opened in Moscow, Davidoff opened an Austrian subsidiary, a country where the brand enjoys stronger market share than any other country in the world.

"Bluebell has been Oettinger Davidoff's close and exclusive partner in Asia (excluding China) for almost four decades, and it is thanks to Bluebell that Asia represents our most prominent Davidoff retail footprint anywhere in the world," said Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard, the chief executive officer of Oettinger Davidoff AG. "This equity investment reflects both our desire to prolong and deepen our relationship with Bluebell as well as the critical importance of Asia to our future strategy and business growth."

The deal includes an option for Davidoff to increase its ownership to a majority stake in the future.

Davidoff has more than 3,500 employees around the world and makes such storied cigar brands as Davidoff, Avo, Camacho and Zino Platinum.

Davidoff, which is based in Basel, Switzerland, is one of the most international of cigar companies, but cigarmakers of all kinds have been expanding abroad. To read more about how cigar companies are looking outside of America's borders, read Non Cubans Go Global. Enditem