Philip Morris Companies
 |
|
| Public | |
| Traded as | |
| Industry | Tobacco |
| Founded | 1985 (as Philip Morris Companies, Inc.) |
| Founder | Philip Morris, Kraft Foods Inc, Nabisco Holdings Corporation |
| Headquarters | Henrico County, Virginia, U.S. |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
Martin Barrington (Chairman) & (CEO) |
| Products | Tobacco and wine |
| Revenue |
 US$ 25.576 billion (2017)
|
 US$ 9.556 billion (2017)
|
|
|
US$ 10.227 billion (2017)
|
|
| Total assets |
US$ 43.202 billion (2017)
|
| Total equity |
US$ 15.380 billion (2017)
|
|
Number of employees
|
8,300 (2017) |
| Website | Altria.com |
Altria Group, Inc. (renamed from Philip Morris Companies Inc. on January 27, 2003) is an American corporation and one of the world's largest producers and marketers of tobacco, cigarettes and related products. It operates worldwide and is headquartered in Henrico County, Virginia.
Altria is the parent company of Philip Morris USA, John Middleton, Inc., U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, Inc., Philip Morris Capital Corporation, and Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. Philip Morris International was spun off in 2008. Altria maintains a 28.7% stake in the UK-based brewer SABMiller plc. It is a component of the S&P 500 and was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average until February 19, 2008. On January 6, 2009, Altria acquired UST Inc., a smokeless tobacco manufacturer, which also owned wine producer Ste Michelle Wine Estates, and is now a subsidiary of Altria.
Altria emerged from Philip Morris. The onset of "rebranding" of Philip Morris Companies to Altria took place in 2003 (Philip Morris would later split, with PM USA remaining Altria's primary and only consistently held asset). Altria was created because Philip Morris wished to emphasize that its business portfolio had come to consist of more than Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International; at the time, it owned an 84% stake in Kraft, although that business has since been spun off. The name "Altria" is claimed to come from the Latin word for "high" and was part of a trend of companies rebranding to names that previously did not exist, Accenture (previously Andersen Consulting) and Verizon being notable examples, though linguist Steven Pinker suggests that in fact the name is an "egregious example" of phonesthesia — with the company attempting to "switch its image from bad people who sell addictive carcinogens to a place or state marked by altruism and other lofty values".
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Wikipedia