Photo: Timothy Donahue
Daughters & Ryan tobacco company has sold a majority stake to Inter-Continental Trading USA for an undisclosed sum. Mark Ryan, founder and president of Daughters & Ryan, told Tobacco Reporter today that the time was right. Ryan said he will stay with the company for at least five more years.
“The main thing was keeping our pipe tobaccos on the market,” said Ryan. “I have been fighting for this industry for 30 years; it just seemed like the right time to sell a portion of the company. I want to enjoy myself more. We started having some issues with tube production in the Philippines so we wanted to make sure we could move manufacturing here domestically and this allows us to accomplish that.”
Inter-Continental will take control of the manufacturing of Daughters & Ryan cigarette tubes and pipe tobacco.
Daughters & Ryan’s began in 2002 as a manufacturer and distributor of roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco and expanded into the pipe market with its line of premium pipe tobaccos, as well as cigars and e-liquids. The company also offers other tobacco products (OTP) such as cigarette tubes, rolling papers and rollers, filter plugs, injection machines and shisha accessories.
Daughters & Ryan is housed in an 80,000-square-foot facility that sits on a 20-acre lot in Kenly, North Carolina, USA. The company has 17 employees and sales reached nearly $5 million in 2014, according to the most recently available data.
Ryan, who also owns the L.A. Poche Perique Tobacco Co. in Louisiana, USA, said the Perique company was not included in the stock sale. Perique is a unique type of tobacco that is grown exclusively on a small swath of land near New Orleans.
Shargio Patel, president of Inter-Continental, is well-known for acquisitions and investment in growth opportunities. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Based in Mount Prospect, Illinois, USA, Inter-Continental Trading USA manufactures OHM pipe tobacco, cigarette tubes and filtered cigars, 752 pipe tobacco and filtered cigars, Shargio cigarette tubes and accessories, Roxwell pipe tobacco and cigarettes tubes, Westport filtered cigars and Kashmir rolling papers, hemp wraps, pre-rolled tubes and accessories. –T.S.D