Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has represented Reynolds American on the sale of its Natural American Spirit cigarette business outside the U.S. to Japan Tobacco for 600 billion yen ($5 billion), with Jones Day advising the buyer.
Japan Tobacco said the deal will include Natural American Spirit’s associated trademarks and business units mainly in Japan and Europe, where operations will go on as usual.
Reynolds American said in a statement that it will keep the U.S. rights to the brand, which is marketed as a premium, additive-free tobacco product, through one of its subsidiaries, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company.
Japan Tobacco, 33.4 percent owned by the Japanese government, has been steadily making overseas acquisitions as it competes against Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco to become the world’s largest cigarette manufacturer. In 1999, it purchased the international operations of RJR Nabisco’s brands, including Camel and Winston, for nearly $8 billion. In 2007, it bought Gallaher Group, the U.K.-based producer of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, for about $18.8 billion.
Headed by New York-based Randi Lesnick, Jones Day’s deal team includes partners Tim Melton, Craig Waldman, Dan Hagen, Peter Biersteker, Ed Kennedy, Jeffrey Litle, Candace Ridgway, Ferdinand Mason and Philippe Li.
