Philip Morris International
Inc said on Friday it has agreed to buy Colombia’s
second-largest cigarette maker for $452 million, expanding the
world’s largest non-state-owned tobacco company’s presence in
Latin America.
The company it will acquire, Productora Tabacalera de
Colombia, Protabaco, sold an estimated 6.1 billion cigarettes
in 2008 and had market share of about 31.8 percent in Colombia,
Philip Morris said.
The deal is expected to add slightly to Phillip Morris
earning and is expected to close within six months, the maker
of Marlboro cigarettes said. (Reuters)