Swedish Match

Swedish Match is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that makes snus, moist snuff, and Chewing Tobacco (with its Red Man brand). These products are known as moist smokeless tobacco. The company also makes machine-made cigars, matches and lighters. Swedish Match was founded as Svenska Tändsticksaktiebolaget by Ivar Kreuger in 1917 in Jönköping (also known as "City of the matches"). By expanding through acquisition of national monopolies and merging with the British company Bryant and May, in 1926, it became the world's largest match manufacturer. The company changed its name in 1980.

In 1992, the listed company, Procordia, with Volvo and the Swedish state as principal owners, acquired the match and lighter business named Swedish Match. Swedish Match operations were combined with Procordia’s business operations. This larger Procordia United Brands division was renamed to Swedish Match to take advantage of this internationally known company name. The acquired company became the Parent Company in the subsidiary with Klaus Unger as President. This new combination meant that the tobacco businesses, STA (Svenska Tobaks), EBAS (Elisabeth Bas) and Pinkerton, would have an international network and thus improve the efficiency of marketing, sales and distribution. Swedish Match became a publicly listed company in 1996, having been spun off from Volvo. Swedish Match shares have been listed at the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm since 1996 with the ticker symbol SWMA.

While today's Swedish Match still produces matches, the majority of its sales and profits come from its smokeless products and machine made cigars. Swedish Match generates most of its sales in Sweden and Norway, the US, and Brazil., but also has a significant worldwide presence through its matches and lighters businesses.

In the U.S., Swedish Match produces and distributes the Longhorn, Timber Wolf and Red Man brands of moist snuff. The company also expanded into the United States premium cigar business by purchasing General Cigar Company Inc. (producer of non-Cuban versions of Macanudo, Partagas and Punch) from Edgar Cullman and El Credito Cigar Company (producer of La Gloria Cubana and El Rico Habano) from Ernesto Perez-Carrillo. In October 2010 the company transferred its US premium cigar and European cigar businesses, and its pipe tobacco businesses to Scandinavian Tobacco Group. This was part of the transaction whereby on October 1, 2010 Swedish Match acquired 49% of Scandinavian Tobacco Group, merging its cigar, pipe tobacco and accessories operations (except its United States mass market cigar brands) into the firm.

In an effort to expand its snus business outside of Sweden and Norway, the company has recently been selling its Scandinavian market leading brand of snus, General, at select tobacco retailers in the US. For the US, snus is a relatively new category. In the US, the main smokeless category is moist snuff. (Moist snuff is made using a fermentation process and usually placed under the lower lip, requiring spitting. Snus is made using a steam heat process (much like pasteurisation) and is usually placed under the upper lip, which means that spitting is not necessary). Swedish Match also has 50 percent ownership of a joint venture company, SMPMI, which is exploring the possibility of selling snus outside of Scandinavia and the US. The other 50 percent of SMPMI is held by Philip Morris International.

They also market the Ventti brand of cigarette-rolling papers in Australia (which is the second most available brand of rolling papers in non-tobacconist stores and supermarkets.)