Phillip Morris Looking For New Victims!!

HONG KONG, March 14 - Signaling the growing enthusiasm of big tobacco companies for the lucrative Asian cigarette market, Philip Morris International said Monday that it would offer $5.2 billion to buy H.M. Sampoerna, Indonesia's third-largest cigarette maker.

In an agreement with the family-run Sampoerna, Philip Morris said it would pay 18.6 trillion rupiah, or $2 billion, to buy a 40 percent stake of the company from the family. It would make a public tender for the remaining 60 percent, offering a 20 percent premium over last Thursday's closing price.

Putera Sampoerna, head of the company and grandson of its founder, recommended acceptance of the offer.

The move to take over Sampoerna, which makes Indonesia's pungent tobacco-and-clove kretek cigarettes, underscores the importance of Asia to the future of global tobacco companies.

As cigarette sales stagnate or decline in North America and Western Europe, Asians are smoking more than ever.

Of the world's 1.2 billion smokers, half are in Asia. China, India and Indonesia are seen as especially attractive markets because of large populations and growing affluence. The World Health Organization has projected that cigarette smoking will increase 6.5 percent in East Asia in the 10 years to 2008, as it declines 8 percent in Western Europe and stagnates in the Americas.

i guess we have become too educated to the health perils of cigarettes so they now need an uninformed people to kill off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/business...5morris.html?th