British American Tobacco Day

The company was formed in 1902, when the United Kingdom's Imperial Tobacco Company and the United States' American Tobacco Company agreed to form a joint venture, the "British-American Tobacco Company Ltd."The parent companies agreed not to trade in each other's domestic territory and to assign trademarks, export businesses and overseas subsidiaries to the joint venture. James Buchanan Duke became company chairman and business was begun in countries as diverse as Canada, China, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, but not in the United Kingdom or in the United States.

Today British American Tobacco plc is a British multinational company that manufactures and sells cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine products. As of 2019, it is the largest tobacco company in the world based on net sales. It has operations in around 180 countries, and its cigarette brands include Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall and Rothmans. Its brands also include Vype and Vuse and Glo. Number of employees: 55,000 (2021). In January 2022, BAT announced the creation of biotech investment company KBio Holdings Limited (KBio) to “leverage the existing and extensive plant-based technology capabilities of BAT and Kentucky BioProcessing Inc”.