IMPERIAL TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED. This British combine, the full title of which is The Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland), Limited, was formed in 1901 to incorporate a number of the leading British tobacco manu facturers, including W. D. and H. O. Wills, Lambert and Butler, John Player and Sons, W. and F. Faulkner, and Ogdens, and 13 other firms and companies. Between them, these firms control 27 factories, producing cigarettes, pipe tobaccos, cigars and snuff.
In 1928 the issued share capital of the company amounted to £42,800,000, upon which the stock markets place a heavy pre mium. The branches of the company cover a very large area, and it manufactures not only the tobacco sold, but the packing materi als. The combine has some 20 factories engaged in the various processes of typographical and colour printing. There is also a factory devoted to the extraction of nicotine from tobacco waste. The total area of the combine's factories and warehouses in the United Kingdom alone exceeds square feet.
The work of the company extends to many places outside the United Kingdom, there being 35 factories abroad. These foreign factories do not produce manufactured goods, but are concerned only in the handling of natural tobacco and in drying and packing it for shipment to the United Kingdom. The combine employs 40,00o people. (L. C. M.)