Looks like the end may be near for Altadis as an independent company. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Spanish firm with a 50% interest in Habanos, the state-run maker of Cuban cigars, may be getting competing offers in the next few days that would value the company at more than $17 Billion. Imperial Tobacco of Bristol England and CVC, a private equity firm in Luxemborg are expected to be the main rivals for Altadis. To read the full story at the Wall Street Journal, please click the title link above.
Presidential Wantabe's That Smoke Cigars
Speaking of government and with the 2008 national elections not so far away, there are some candidates for the Presidency who are smokers, or know one: • On the Democratic side, wunderkind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is a cigarette smoker who says he wants to quit and is reportedly trying. • Fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton is married to a smoker (you remember him, don’t you?), but while living in the White House, she enforced a no-smoking policy inside the building that sent her husband/President outdoors when he was actually smoking his cigars. • Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani of New York is a well-known and long-time cigar lover. • Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado is a cigar smoker of the first stripe and was part of a dust-up over smoking in his office with an aide to a Representative in the next office. Tancredo continues to smoke and enjoys Perdomo Reserve cigars among others. • Undeclared but possible Republican candidate Fred Thompson of Tennessee is a cigar smoker as well and reportedly has a preference for Cuban cigars . . . when he can get them. He’s been shown smoking in many of his film and television appearances and had a cigar in hand in his brilliant video retort to a challenge by filmmaker Michael Moore to a debate. On the other side is the possible independent candidature of billionaire ex-Republican Michael Bloomberg, currently the Mayor of New York. A former smoker, he is virulently anti-tobacco and not only pushed through the New York smoking ban, but promised $125 million of his own fortune to “help” push the anti-tobacco message worldwide. Listing Courtesy of CigarCyclopedia
Cigar Shacks!
Here's a great idea that one hotel company in the UK is doing to thwart the smoking ban due to take effect in England next month.....perhaps we can convince them to do the same here in the U.S. where smoking bans are prominent? Courtesy of Cigar Insider:
With England’s smoking ban going into effect July 1,
one upscale hotel chain in the United Kingdom has
begun to provide smoking asylums for England’s disenfranchised
cigar enthusiasts. Many Hotel du Vin locations
are building outdoor Cigar Shacks to accommodate their
smoking clientele. The initiative is a collaboration between
CEO Robert Cook and John Harris of Bothy Lodge Co.,
a Scotland-based company contracted to build the shacks.
“I had to do something to combat the smoking ban and
uphold the values of the Hotel du Vin, so we created
an exclusive space for our guests to enjoy their cigars,”
said Cook. The hexagonal structures measure 8 by 4 meters and are
constructed primarily of larch wood. Most of the construction
is done at the Bothy Lodge factory before the
large pieces are brought to the hotels, thus reducing installation
time to only a few days. Each shack costs £40,000
(about $79,000) to build and includes amenities such as a
whiskey and Armagnac cabinet, a well-stocked humidor
and a wall-mounted plasma gas fire. The humidors and
liquor cabinets are locked, but the ring of a buzzer will
promptly summon service. Although 50 percent of the
structure is open to the elements, the under-floor heating
and warm-air curtains will ensure that guests stay cozy during
colder weather. The interior is designed and furnished
to exude a luxury lounge feeling, giving smokers the
impression that the Cigar Shack is an extension of the hotel
rather than simply an auxiliary space.
The decision to install the shacks was not purely a hospitality
move, but also economically motivated. According
to Cook, Hotels du Vin bring in $600,000 a year from
cigar sales, making the chain one of the largest, if not the
largest, hotel purveyor and customer of Havana cigars.
One Cigar Shack is up and running in the Hotel du Vin
in Glasgow, Scotland. Other Cigar Shacks are scheduled to
open in the outdoor gardens of the Hotel du Vin
Winchester, Tunbridge Wells, Henley-on-Thames and
Cheltenham this summer. Other locations will have them
later in the year and into 2008. For those Hotels du Vin
that do not have outdoor gardens, Cook plans on designing
interior smoking sanctums in compliance with the law.
“We have always nurtured the Havana culture in the
U.K. Cigars are in our blood, in the Hotel du Vin’s DNA,”
he said.
 Among his fellow Britons as well as cigar smokers, Winston Churchill is iconic.So it should have been no surprise when a humidor presented to Churchill upon his election to the House of Commons in 1900 from the town which elected him – Oldham – sold for 13 times more than expected.Sold as a part of a large program of 20th Century items by Christie’s last week, the humidor (pictured above) started life as a cabinet, which was converted by adding four cigar trays. It was one of several gifts given to Churchill by The Primrose League, a Conservative organization. The lid bears an engraved plaque which is inscribed “Presented to Mr. W.S. Churchill on being elected Member of Parliament for Oldham, 1st October 1900.”Expected to earn 1,000-1,500 British pounds ($1,967 to 2,950 U.S.), the item brought £14,400 or about $28,324!Nick Worskett of Christie’s told the Manchester Evening News that the items were on the market for the first time. Why did the humidor do so well? “Simple,” he said, “the association. Churchill, cigars . . . it had everything going for it and did extremely well.”It wasn’t the only piece of cigar memorabilia at the sale. A cigar punch in the shape of an owl, also a gift to Churchill upon his election in 1900, was sold for £1,200 (about 2,360 U.S.).
Los Angeles, June 13 – The government office responsible for monitoring violations of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba has U.S. cigar smokers in its sights.The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a department of the U.S. Treasury, has handed out seven penalties so far this year with fines totaling $13,712.75 to Americans who “purchased Cuban-origin cigars offered for sale on the Internet.”That’s a high level of enforcement compared to past years. For example, in all of 2006, OFAC handed out only two such penalties, and late in the year, with fines totaling $2,189. Most of the penalties issued by OFAC to individuals prior to the fourth quarter of last year were for unauthorized travel to Cuba or the sale of goods or services by companies without an OFAC license to do so.In the cigar cases handed down so far this year, penalties ranged from a low of $820 to a high of $6,088.85 for violations ranging from a single case to multiple instances:• April: a fine of $820.00 for an individual who bought Cuban cigars on the Internet in 2005.• April: a fine of $1,071.90 for an individual who bought cigars in 2004 and 2005.• May: a fine of $6,088.85 for an individual who bought cigars from 2003-06.• May: a fine of $1,261.00 for an individual who bought cigars in 2006.• June: a fine of $856.00 for an individual who bought cigars in 2002-03.• June: a fine of $1,311.00 for an individual who bought cigars in 2004.• June: a fine of $2,304.00 for an individual who bought cigars in 2005-06.It’s worth noticing that as OFAC acquires records of transactions going back as far as five years, it is imposing fines, no doubt based on the number and size of the violations. In addition, OFAC has sent letters to smokers with U.S. addresses who are suspected of being customers of Internet sites which ship Havana cigars into the United States. So while the practice continues, the U.S. Government has increased its vigilance of the Cuban cigar trade into the U.S. To read the entire article, please click the link on the title of this article. Courtesy: CigarCyclopedia
The Stanley Cup and Cigars!
Congratulations to the Mighty Anaheim Ducks for capturing their first ever Stanley Cup Championship! - HV Cigars and the Cup:As the Anaheim Ducks wrapped up the first Stanley Cup championship by a California team in front of a raucous crowd at the Honda Center in Anaheim last night, fans who had access to the VIP Lounge were treated to champagne . . . and cigars!The bubbly was flowing freely among the fans in the lounge, but despite the ban on indoor smoking in California, specially-made “Stanley Cup Champions” cigars were handed out. Those who didn’t keep them as souvenirs had a perfect, warm Southern California night to enjoy just outside the Honda Center.The cigars were made by CF Dominicana Cigars, a custom-cigar producer headquartered in New York. The cigars are Dominican made, with Dominican-grown leaf and a Connecticut wrapper and the sizes we saw ran from $6-7 each. But to get one after the Ducks’ first-ever Stanley Cup? Priceless!~ Rich Perelman, CigarCyclopedia
Stupid U.S. Cuban Cigar Laws
Here is a article from Fox News showing how stupid our laws relating to Cuban cigars and American citizens are. Gov. Schwarzenegger recently was in Canada attending a trade meeting and stopped at a local hotel to buy a cigar. It appears it was a Cuban cigar and now the media is focusing in on whether he broke the law. Remember, our dumb-ass laws right now prohibit American citizens from smoking a Cuban cigar anywhere in the world! That's right, anywhere in the world. And the penalty if you do? Fines and/or imprisonment! Is this the dumbest law on the books or what? Click here for the full sad story.
2007 Cigar Imports Chugging Along
The Cigar Association of America recently released the latest trends in cigar imports into the U.S. What the numbers show is that despite a ton of anti-smoking chatter and new taxes and regulations, the cigar industry is doing...well...quite well! The Cigar Association of America’s report for March 2007 showed another increase against one year prior and end the first quarter with imports running nicely ahead of 2006: • Premium cigar imports totaled 25.8 million for March, up 4.8% over the 24.6 million that entered the U.S. March of 2006.• For the first quarter of 2007, imports totaled 60.3 million, up 3.5% over the 58.3 million for the first three months of 2006. • As usual, the Dominican Republic dominated import totals, with 14.4 million or 56% of the total. For the first quarter, Dominican imports totaled 33.2 million, up 11.4% from last year. • Honduras maintained its second-place status, but import totals fell for the month and for the first quarter. March imports totaled 6.1 million, down from 6.6 million the year before and for the quarter, imports were down from almost 15 million in 2006 to 13.6 million, nearly a 10% decline. • Nicaraguan imports were also down slightly. For March of 2007, imports reached 4.7 million, down slightly from the 4.9 million a year earlier. For the first quarter, imports were down almost four percent to 12.7 million compared to 13.2 million for 2006. Keep up the good work everyone!
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