Japan Tobacco Filter Makers To Merge In April 2000 (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Note the following disturbing excerpt from the story below:

"The idea [of the merger] is to integrate managerial resources to keep
pace with streamlining efforts at the parent and boost R &D efforts to
gain a greater share of overseas markets."

Robert Weissman
Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob@essential.org

Japan Tobacco Filter Makers To Merge In April 2000
by Nikkei English News via NewsEdge
Source: NewsEdge, Thursday, 8/12/99
        
Nikkei English News via NewsEdge Corporation : TOKYO (Nikkei)--Five filter
makers affiliated with Japan Tobacco Inc.  (2914) have agreed to merge in
April 2000, company sources said Wednesday.  The idea is to integrate
managerial resources to keep pace with streamlining efforts at the parent
and boost R &D efforts to gain a greater share of overseas markets.


The plan calls for Japan Filter Technology Ltd. to absorb the four other
firms, with the deal to be signed in December.  The remaining company will
be capitalized at 500 million yen and have sales of 40 billion yen.  All
six plants and employees of the five firms will come under control of the
new entity.


Japan Tobacco holds 80% stakes in each of the companies and relies on them
for almost all of the filters it uses to make cigarettes for the domestic
market.  At 76.5%, JT's share of the Japanese market in fiscal 1998 was
more than 7 percentage points lower than it was in fiscal 1990.


The new company will try to attract business from foreign cigarette
producers in an effort to reduce its dependence on the parent.  One of the
products it will be able to offer is a dual filter with activated
charcoal.  RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., which Japan Tobacco acquired in
May, is one of the firms the new company will solicit business from.


(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Thursday morning edition)


<<Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. -- 08-11-99>>