Huge News CAO and General to merge

[Mowee]

Scandinavian Tobacco Group--the owners of CAO and the Torano factories--is merging with General Cigar. Swedish Match is putting in its premium cigar business (while keeping US mass market) and STG is putting in all its business. STG will own controlling interest in the new company and its CEO will head the venture. They expect the deal to close in the first half of this year.

 

[jmatkins]

Thanks for the info

 

[Stew]

Heres a link to CA's article on the subject.

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Features/CA_Feature_Basic_Template/0,2344,3056,00.html

-Steven

 

[LittleBrother]

interesting.

-LB

 

[mthhurley]

Thanks....Knew there was one of these coming soon.

 

[Kidrock]

not happy...I use to love CAO products. I was not impressed of the La Trivita:frownno:

 

[roughrider]

not happy...I use to love CAO products. I was not impressed of the La Trivita:frownno:

Everyone seems to be raving about these.

 

[Mowee]

I liked the La Triviata..a good smoke for the price. This merger should be interesting in that it will give CAO more penetration into the market and for General it gives them someone who WANTS to be in premium cigars and grow the market.

 

[axi]

This merger should be interesting in that it will give CAO more penetration into the market and for General it gives them someone who WANTS to be in premium cigars and grow the market.

Agreed. I don't think I've found too many of General's cigars to my liking...I've never said "man I can't wait to get home after this long day and smoke that havana honey"
I'm interested to see what CAO will do with the increased exposure and backing from general.

 

[LiLo]

This doesn't really effect me. I don't smoke any of either products. Although the La traviata is decent.

 

[Mowee]

General has some good products...the Mac 68, the new Benji Menendez..it should be interesting.

 

[SanCristobal]

this is not good.

 

[hank_612]

this is not good.

Nope. The bigger general gets the harder it will be for smaller brands to get shelf space.

I heard a rumor and I am 80% sure its BS but the rumor I heard that this is just the first shoe to drop of 3 and the next one is none other than Rocky Patel. Again this is just a rumor.

 

[Boosted]

Oh well, hardly smoke General and CAO stuff anyways. It does suck though, pretty soon there will be nothing but General and Altadis left on the shelves.

 

[reliefdvm]

That is too bad - I do like the La Traviata. On principle I don't smoke General or Altadis products so I guess i can cross off CAO from my list of cigars.

 

[Mowee]

The rumor about Rocky has been around for a long time. He's been trying to sell...but now who would buy him?

 

[GUSTO]

Hmmm - General Cigar brands and CAO....YURZ!

 

[Chase]

Should be intresting to see what happens forward with them.

 

[reliefdvm]

In my business we saw quite a few drug company's merge over the years. In every instance when a "bad" drug company (one that we didn't want to deal with) would merge with a good company - the bad always won out in higher prices, lower quality and no customer service. Pretty much status quo for the bad company.

My advise - if this merger goes through and there are CAO cigars that you like - buy them before the New combined company starts buying cheaper filler.