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Swedish Match

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Swedish Match

Swedish Match AB is a Swedish multinational tobacco company headquartered in Stockholm. It has been owned by the American Philip Morris International since 2022. The company manufactures snus, nicotine pouches, moist snuff, tobacco- and nicotine-free pouch products, chewing tobacco, chew bags, tobacco bits, cigars, matches, lighters, and other fire products with operations in Sweden, Denmark, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the Philippines. The company's origins can be traced back to 1868, and Ivar Kreuger. Swedish Match has played an important part in Sweden's industrial development.

In May 2022, Philip Morris launched a takeover bid for Swedish Match. Despite some shareholder resistance, by late November 2022 Philip Morris had acquired over 90% ownership, allowing it to begin the compulsory purchase of remaining shares and de-list Swedish Match from the stock market.

The operations of Swedish Match originate from two companies: Svenska Tobaksmonopolet, a tobacco monopoly owned by the Swedish state and founded in 1915, and Svenska Tändsticks Aktiebolaget (STAB), a match manufacturing company founded in 1917 by Ivar Kreuger (also known as the ”Match King”) in connection with the acquisition of Jönköpings Tändsticksfabrik. In 1992, the tobacco and lights operations were joined in the Procordia Group. Two years later, they were merged into an independent company named Swedish Match, which became publicly listed in 1996.

During parts of its existence, most recently between 2010 and 2015, the company has been headquartered in the so-called Matchstick Palace, commissioned by Ivar Kreuger in the late 1920s.

In 1917, Ivar Kreuger founded Svenska Tändsticks Aktiebolaget (STAB) in Jönköping (also known as "City of the matches"). It was a merger between Aktiebolaget Förenade Tändsticksfabriker and Jönköpings & Vulcans Tändsticksfabriksaktiebolag. By expanding through acquisition of government-created monopolies by lending money to the governments, and through mergers with for instance the British match company Bryant and May in 1927, it became the world's largest match manufacturer. A year later, STAB was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. In 1930, the company controlled 60 percent of the world's match production and was the sole owner of match companies in 33 countries.

Following the death of Ivar Kreuger in 1932, the ownership structure in STAB changed and a number of factories were liquidated. During 1938, STAB's share of the world's matchmaking fell to 20 percent. When the match market declined sharply in the 1950s, STAB looked for new business ventures and acquired more than 50 companies between 1968 and 1976.

In 1980, Svenska Tändsticks AB changed its name to Swedish Match to create unity throughout the group. In 1988 the company was acquired by Stora AB and was sold two years later to Nederlight. After another two years, Procordia acquired Swedish Match.

In 1915, the Swedish government founded AB Svenska Tobaksmonopolet and nationalized all Swedish tobacco production plants. The monopoly was introduced in order to give the government funds to finance the country's military defense and a new national pension system.

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