R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

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The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) is an American tobacco company founded in 1875 by R. J. Reynolds and based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The company is the second largest producer of tobacco products in the USA and produces brands such as Camel, Lucky Strike, Winston and Pall Mall. Since 2017, the entire holding company Reynolds American Inc. belongs to British American Tobacco Plc (BAT).

History

Richard Joshua Reynolds, the son of a tobacco producer from Virginia, sold his shares in his father’s plantation in Patrick County at the age of 25 and founded a tobacco company in Winston, North Carolina in 1875. The place was the closest with a railway connection. His first factory building, called the little red factory, he acquired from the Herrenhuter Brüdergemeine and produced 150,000 pounds of chewing tobacco there in the first year with seasonal workers. Reynolds reckoned with the increase in the popularity of tobacco smoking and in the following years, supported by intensive advertising campaigns, introduced pipe tobacco as blend mixtures.

From 1890, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) was a public limited company. R.J. Reynolds held almost 90 percent of the company and was elected president, with his brother as vice president. In 1892, the company built a second factory building and increased production to several million pounds of tobacco products per year.

In 1898, R. J. Reynolds sold two-thirds of his RJR shares to Continental Tobacco Company, a subsidiary of the American Tobacco Company of his competitor James Buchanan Duke. He retained his position as president.

At the beginning of the 20. Reynolds took over most of the tobacco factories in Winston-Salem. The company produced 25% of the American chewing tobacco and the Camel brand cigarettes became the most popular in the US. In 1911, the American Tobacco Company was disbanded by the U.S. Supreme Court due to antitrust legislation and the corporation was forced to part with all Reynolds shares. R.J. Reynolds and members of his family repurchased some of the shares and regained control of the RJR from 1912. As a result, Reynolds developed a company statute that funded Reynolds employees to purchase shares from surplus funds and profits under the Reynolds share purchase plan. Until 1924, the majority of the voting shares in the company were owned by employees of the company. In 1917, the company bought 84 hectares of land in Winston-Salem and built 180 houses for the workers, the later "Reynoldstown".

With Winston, RJR launched one of the first filter cigarettes on the market in 1954. 1956 followed with Salem the first Mentholzigarette.

In the 1960s, a number of food and oil companies were acquired. Under restructuring