Who owns West?
West is owned by Imperial Brands (the United Kingdom, LSE: IMB), which has owned the brand since 15 May 2002.[1][2]
Evidence: Imperial Brands PLC Annual Report and Accounts 2025. Last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Imperial Brands PLC reported
- Owned since
- Owner HQ
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom, Bristol
- Origin
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- Category
- Tobacco & nicotine › Tobacco products › Cigarettes
- Parent ticker
- LSE: IMB
- Trademark registrant
- Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH (USPTO)
- Last verified
- · 3 sources
About West
West is one of Imperial's global cigarette brands, sold internationally including in Spain, where Imperial's FY2025 annual report credits brand equity investment in West, alongside the local jewel brand Ducados, with helping recover market share in the second half of the financial year after a new Spanish tax structure took effect in January 2025.
Trademark record for West
The USPTO record for the West mark lists Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH as the owner of record (serial number 77038366). A trademark is often held by a group company rather than the listed parent, so the registrant's name can differ from the owner named above.[3]
Ownership timeline of West
- 2002 – present Imperial Brands [1][2] reported
Where West sits in Imperial Brands
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Imperial Brands ownership tree →
See the full Imperial Brands brand portfolio (21) →
Other brands owned by Imperial Brands
Imperial Brands controls 21 brands on Brandtree, 20 of them in tobacco & nicotine.
Also in tobacco & nicotine
- Backwoods (1979)
- blu (2009)
- Champion
- Crowns (2011)
- Davidoff
- Ducados
- Dutch Masters (1911)
- Fortuna
- Gauloises
- JPS
- Kool (1933)
- Lambert & Butler
- Paramount
- Parker & Simpson
- Pulze
- Riverstone
- Skruf (2003)
- Winston (United States) (1954)
Other brands in cigarettes, and who owns them
Imperial Brands has more brands in cigarettes on Brandtree than any other owner: 11 of 81.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| GG Mild | Gudang Garam | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
| Camel (United States) | British American Tobacco | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| American Legend | Karelia | 🇬🇷 Greece |
| Boston (Eastern cigarettes) | Eastern Company | 🇪🇬 Egypt |
| Djarum 76 | Djarum | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
| Capstan | ITC | 🇮🇳 India |
| Camel | Japan Tobacco | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| L&M (United States) | Altria | 🇺🇸 United States |
About the owner: Imperial Brands
Imperial Brands is a publicly listed company headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, founded in 1901. Brandtree records 21 brands under its control, and it is listed as LSE: IMB.
Imperial Brands is a British tobacco and next-generation-products group formed in 1901 as the Imperial Tobacco Company through the merger of thirteen British cigarette and tobacco manufacturers responding to American Tobacco Company's entry into the UK market. It describes itself in its FY2025 annual report as "a stronger challenger business" built on a deliberately focused portfolio of combustible, heated tobacco, vapour and modern oral nicotine brands sold across five priority combustible markets — the USA, Germany, the UK, Spain and Australia — plus growth clusters in Africa, the Middle East, Turkey and Central & Eastern Europe. Its FY2025 revenue-generating combustible categories are cigarettes, fine cut tobacco and mass market cigars; premium cigars were exited in 2020.
Imperial Brands: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
🇩🇪 West and other German brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 265 brands that began in Germany. 96 of them (36%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, West among them.
- Exklusiv — Pöschl Tabak 🇩🇪
- 3 Glocken — Princes Group 🇬🇧
- A. Lange & Söhne — Richemont 🇨🇭
- ABOUT YOU — Zalando 🇩🇪
- ADS-TEC Energy — ADS-TEC Energy 🇮🇪
- AEG — Electrolux 🇸🇪
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of West?
The parent company of West is Imperial Brands, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Is West German or British?
West originated in Germany, but it is owned today by Imperial Brands, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom. So West is a German-origin brand under British ownership.
Since when has Imperial Brands owned West?
Imperial Brands has owned West since 15 May 2002.
Is West still owned by Imperial Brands?
Yes. As of 27 September 2026, West is still owned by Imperial Brands. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (3) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Imperial Brands PLC Annual Report and Accounts 2025 — Imperial Brands PLC, Annual report; retrieved 21 September 2026.
- [2] Imperial Tobacco Group PLC, Form 20-F for the year ended 30 September 2007 — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC Form 20-F, published 30 November 2007; retrieved 27 September 2026.
- [3] USPTO: WEST, serial 77038366, registration 3292872 — United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark registry; retrieved 27 September 2026.
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