Talk:British American Tobacco/Archives/2020

Suggested updates for BAT article
Hi there

My name is Will Hill and, in the interests of transparency, I want to make it clear that I work in the communications team at BAT.

I noticed you recently made edits to the BAT Wikipedia article, and wanted to raise a few points areas that are out of date or no longer factually correct. It would be great if you could take a look at the updates I've drafted and tell me what you think.

I haven't proposed updates to Wikipedia for many years (I used to update Next15 PLC's page) but my attempted updated draft is below:

British American Tobacco plc (BAT) is a multinational company that manufactures and sells cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine products. The company, established in 1902, is headquartered in London, England. As of 2019, it is the largest cigarette maker in the world based on net sales. BAT has operations in around 180 countries, and its cigarette brands include Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall and Rothmans. BAT’s acquisition of Reynolds American Inc. in 2016 created the world’s largest listed tobacco company. By acquiring Reynolds, BAT also acquired US brands Newport, Camel, and Natural American Spirit. The company does not necessarily own the rights to all of these brands in every nation they are marketed. BAT manufactures and sells vapour and heated tobacco products, modern oral products, as well as traditional oral products such as snus and moist snuff. Its brands include Vype and Vuse and glo. BAT has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. BAT plc ordinary shares are also listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”). In March 2020 BAT announced a new commercial direction, focusing on generating “an increasingly greater proportion of [its] revenue from products other than cigarettes.”

Motorsport
In 1997 BAT brought its participation in the sport to new levels with the purchase of the Tyrrell team for approximately £30 million. The team raced as Tyrrell for the 1998 season before being renamed as British American Racing (BAR). In 2005 a European Union (EU) directive was brought into force which required national governments to legislate to prevent tobacco sponsorship. In 2004 BAR announced that technology partner Honda had purchased a 45% stake and in September 2005 it announced that Honda would be buying the remaining 55% stake. The team raced as Honda Racing F1 Team in 2006, the last year of the Lucky Strike sponsorship before leaving the sport. For the 2006 season, the team was renamed as Honda F1 Racing Team, with BAT only advertised at a couple of races. All links between the two companies were severed for 2007. In 2019 McLaren signed a multi-year deal with British American Tobacco. McLaren's announcement of a "global partnership" with BAT brings the company back into F1 for the first time since Honda succeeded BAR. In late 2019 BAT and McLaren announced the signing of an enhanced partnership deal that saw BAT become a Principal Partner of McLaren for the 2020 Formula 1 season.

Do let me know if you have any thoughts - I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you,

Will.


 * Hi - I have updated the introduction using some of the material you proposed (where it was independently sourced). It is only necessary to mention that BAT is the world's largest tobacco company once. I have also added the extra sentence on Motorsport. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 08:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)