FRANCE TOBACCO INDUSTRY STRIVES TO MAINTAIN PROFITABILITY DESPITE UNPRECEDENTED SMOKING RESTRICTIONS
May 1st, 2007
BY ALAN OSBORNTHE FRENCH tobacco market is astir and it's quite possible that such iconic brands as Gitanes and Gauloise, part of the Franco-Spanish Altardis group with some 30% of the French cigarette market, will no longer be independently owned by the year-end. The British company Imperial Tobacco announced a take-over bid for Altardis in March and was promptly turned down. A second, higher, bid from the UK company was similarly rebuffed in April. But Imperial is unlikely to be so easily thwarted and industry analysts say it may now come back a third time, if ...
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