8月2日，世界上最大的手工雪茄厂之一，加西亚烟草厂（Tabacalera de Garcia）正式有了新的主人，归属于总部位于西班牙马德里的西班牙烟草集团（Tabacalera Group）。

2017年以来，加西亚烟草厂是帝国烟草集团（Imperial Brands PLC）的一部分，它位于多米尼加的拉罗马纳，非古版本的蒙特、罗密欧与朱丽叶、乌普曼、VF以及很多其他品牌都产自这里。

2020年时，帝国烟草以12.25亿欧元的价格将旗下的手工雪茄业务出售，当时加西亚烟草厂既生产机制雪茄，也生产手工雪茄。2020年的交易前不久，隶属于新加西亚烟草厂的一栋大楼已经开始建造，当时计划将手工雪茄和机制雪茄业务分离。耗资1500万欧元兴建的新加西亚烟草厂7月份刚竣工。新建筑物占地超过30万平方英尺，拥有2100多名员工，可容纳1000多名卷茄师同时工作。年产量大概是4000多万支手工雪茄。

虽然新工厂在兴建，虽然手工雪茄业务要被出售，但是加西亚烟草厂的手工雪茄业务一直没有中断。以前的工厂建筑已经更名为帝国烟草拉罗马纳工厂，现在还属于帝国烟草公司，只不过只是在从事机制雪茄业务。

8月2日，6900万欧元的收购款全部支付完毕，工厂的交易正式完成。

这笔交易前后历时两年，帝国烟草公司剥离了手工雪茄业务，通过两次交易将业务出售给其他公司。向联合烟草公司（ Allied Cigar Corporation S.L）出售了古巴哈伯纳斯烟草公司（Habanos S.A.）50%的股权。向宝石投资控股公司（Gemstone Investment Holding Ltd.）出售了帝国烟草的美国机构，作价2亿美元，包括美国烟草（Tabacalera USA）、美国阿塔迪斯（Altadis USA）、在线零售商JR雪茄、雪茄在线以及哈瓦那之家零售门店，还包括加西亚烟草厂、洪都拉斯的卡潘之花雪茄厂（Flor de Copan factory）。

Tabacalera de Garcia, one of the world’s largest handmade cigar factories, has been completely rebuilt and has a new owner. Today, the facility was officially transferred to Tabacalera Group, headquartered in Madrid, Spain.

Located in La Romana in the Dominican Republic, Tabacalera de Garcia is where the non-Cuban versions of Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann and many other brands have long been rolled. The factory has been a part of Britain’s Imperial Brands PLC since 2017.

Imperial sold its premium cigar division to an investment group for $1.225 billion euros (worth $1.2 billion today) back in 2020, when Tabacalera de Garcia made both machine-made cigars (with brands such as Backwoods) and premium cigars. Shortly before the deal in 2020, construction began on a new facility meant to separate machine-made operations from premium, resulting in the new Tabacalera de Garcia. The massive factory is a 15-million-euro facility (about $15.3 million) dedicated solely to crafting premium cigars by hand. Construction was just completed in July.

Despite the project, and despite the change in ownership, the production of handmade cigars for Tabacalera continued without interruption during the construction process and sale. The building that previously served as Tabacalera de Garcia has been renamed Imperial Tobacco La Romana, and is now a machine-made operation that still belongs to Imperial. The new, sprawling building that is now Tabacalera de Garcia spans more than 300,000 square feet with more than 2,100 employees and the capacity for more than 1,000 cigar rollers. According to Tabacalera, it has the ability to produce 40 million cigars by hand a year.

The official transfer of the factory was dependent on a deferred payment of 69 million euros (about $70.4 million). Now that the payment has gone through, the transfer was finalized today. 

Fernando Domínguez, CEO of Tabacalera Group, noted: "With the entry of Tabacalera de García into the Group, the factory is situated at the epicenter of the business due to its relevance as the art of making cigars is the essence of the business and because it represents the most important group of people of the company”.

This transaction has been two years in the making. When Imperial divested the premium side of the business, it sold off its assets in two transactions to corporations owned by the investment group. One part of the sale included 50 percent of Cuban monopoly Habanos S.A. That was acquired by Allied Cigar Corporation S.L. Imperial’s U.S. division was sold for $200 million to a company named Gemstone Investment Holding Ltd. That part of the sale included Tabacalera USA and its assets Altadis USA, which is responsible for distributing premium cigars in the United States, online retailers JR Cigar, Serious Cigars and Cigars.com, plus the Casa de Montecristo retail chain. Tabacalera de Garcia, as well as the Flor de Copan factory in Honduras, were also part of the deal. 

Tabacalera de Garcia produces a large portfolio of handmade cigars, including Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann, VegaFina and Onyx.