LONDON -- Imperial Tobacco Group PLC on Friday confirmed that it has changed its name to Imperial Brands PLC after receiving shareholder approval at its annual general meeting Wednesday.
According to a report by Alliance News, the London-based company also said that its new web address, www.imperialbrandsplc.com, will go live on Feb. 8.
It has not revealed a new logo.
Imperial Tobacco announced plans to change its name back in December, saying in a statement that the new name "better reflects the dynamic, brand-focused business that we are now."
“Our business is built around great consumer brands,” the statement continued. “Our growth and specialist brands are the key assets in our portfolio and we continue to focus on building the contribution they make to our volume and revenue development.”
The company said it will retain its five corporate brands. Those include Imperial Tobacco and the U.S. unit ITG Brands.
In late 2014, Imperial Tobacco announced that ITG Brands LLC would be the name of the company formed from its existing U.S. business (Commonwealth-Altadis) and its acquisition of brands and assets from Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Inc. Reynolds acquired Lorillard, the maker of the Newport cigarette brand, for $25.9 billion in June. It divested the KOOL, Salem, Winston, Maverick cigarette and blu eCigs brands to ITG Brands, Greensboro, N.C., for $7.1 billion.
Imperial Tobacco is a multi-national tobacco company with brands including Davidoff cigars, cigarettes and pipe tobaccos; West and Gauloises Blondes cigarettes; Montecristo cigars; Golden Virginia hand rolling tobacco; Drum fine-cut tobacco; Rizla rolling papers; and the Puritane e-cigarette brand. It operates in more than 160 markets.
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