Liggett Group Inc.

Liggett Group is a former U.S. conglomerate that once held major interests in tobacco products, spirits and wines, and pet foods. From 1986 to 2024 the company was owned by Brooke Group Ltd. (renamed Vector Group in 2000), an investment holding company controlled by financier Bennett S. LeBow. In October 2024 Vector Group was acquired by Japan Tobacco, Inc. (JT Group).

In 1849 J.E. Liggett and Brother was established in St. Louis, Mo., by John Edmund Liggett (1826–97) as an outgrowth of a family concern dating to 1822. George S. Myers entered the business in 1873, and in 1878 the company was incorporated as Liggett & Myers Company. By 1885 it was the world’s largest manufacturer of plug chewing tobacco, at a time in the United States when chewing was by far the most popular use of tobacco. Not until the 1890s did the company begin producing cigarettes.

From 1899 to 1911 Liggett & Myers was part of the American tobacco trust (see American Brands, Inc.), but it reemerged after dissolution of the trust by the U.S. Court of Appeals and was reincorporated in 1911 as Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, headquartered in Durham, N.C.

Until 1964 the company engaged exclusively in making tobacco products (with such familiar brands as Chesterfield and L&M cigarettes), but in that year it began diversifying with the purchase of Allen Products Company, makers of pet foods. Two years later it acquired controlling interest in Paddington Corporation and Carillon Importers Ltd., importers of spirits and wines (e.g., J&B scotch, Grand Marnier liqueur, Campari aperitif). In 1968 the corporate name was changed to Liggett & Myers Incorporated; in 1976 it was again changed, to Liggett Group Inc. In 1977 Diversified Products Corporation, makers of fitness equipment including the Orbatron brand of weightlifting products, merged with the Liggett Group.

In 1980 the Liggett Group was acquired by a British-based conglomerate, Grand Metropolitan PLC, which sold it in 1986 to American financier Bennett S. LeBow. In 1999 Liggett sold the L&M, Lark, and Chesterfield brands to cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris (later named Altria Group).

What would become the most important company initiative in the 1990s, however, was the move to break ranks with other tobacco companies and admit to the dangers of smoking. In the mid-1990s Liggett settled several outstanding lawsuits, including a settlement with 22 state attorneys general in which LeBow admitted that smoking is addictive, causes cancer, and had been marketed to people under age 18.

In 2000 LeBow’s holding company, Brooke Group Ltd., was renamed Vector Group Ltd. The following year the company launched Vector Tobacco Inc., a subsidiary charged with the development of low- and no-nicotine products. In 2002 the company acquired The Medallion Company, Inc., maker of deep-discount cigarettes.

In 2011 the company branched out into real estate, acquiring a 50% stake in real estate brokerage giant Douglas Elliman and raising its stake to 70% two years later. In 2021 Vector Group spun off Douglas Elliman into a stand-alone company, with shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol DOUG. The spin-off of Elliman was designed to allow Liggett and other Vector subsidiaries to concentrate on their core tobacco operations.

In August 2024, however, Vector announced an agreement to be acquired by Japan Tobacco, Inc. (JT Group), maker of tobacco products, pharmaceuticals, and processed foods that began in 1985 as a government-sanctioned monopoly and is still owned in part by the Japanese government. The $2.4 billion acquisition closed on October 7, 2024.