STG finalizes Royal Agio deal. And with that, Royal Agio Cigars now officially owned by STG. Last September, Scandinavian Tobacco Group and the 115-year-old Dutch cigar manufacturer announced the intended sale which is now finalized. The Wintermans family sold the company to their main rivals for €210 million in cash and debt.

Royal Agio was founded in 1904 by Jacques Wintermans. His bother Harrie joined the company but in the 1920s he started his own brand, Henri Wintermans. That brand has been in the portfolio of Scandinavian Tobacco Group for over 20 years. Now that Scandinavian Tobacco Group acquired Royal Agio Cigars, both the Wintermans brands are back under one roof. The STG headquarter is located in Eersel, on the location of the former Henri Wintermans factory and only a few kilometers from the Agio headquarter in Duizel.

Transition

The announcement of the pending sale last September created a lot of uncertainty for the Royal Agio employees. In the recent past, STG acquired other cigar manufacturers and closing those factories by transferring the production to its own production location. The Royal Agio employees in the Belgian factory event went on a strike, demanding securities from the directors. During our visit to Royal Agio late September we spoke with employees in Duizel as well. Some have been employed by Royal Agio for three generations. As one of the employees said “the Wintermans family has provided food on our table for generations, my grandfather, my father and I worked here for decades. And now I don’t know what’s going to happen to my job.”

 STG released a press statement that there will be a transition period in which the Danish company will merge Royal Agio into its structure. Not only the employees in The Netherlands and Belgium will be affected, but Royal Agio also has factories in Sri Lanka and in the Dominican Republic. Scandinavian Tobacco Group is the parent of General Cigars, and with that, they own a factory on the Dominican Republic as well.

One thing is for sure, after 115 years Royal Agio isn’t a family-owned cigar manufacturer anymore. You can read about the history of Royal Agio in our two-part special: part one & part two.