STG closes Royal Agio factories

STG closes Royal Agio factories. Last September, Royal Agio and Scandinavian Tobacco Group dropped a bomb. Scandinavian Tobacco Group was acquiring the 115-year-old family-owned Royal Agio cigars. Earlier this year, the deal was finalized while STG was investigating how they would incorporate Royal Agio into their organization. And now they dropped another bomb. A bomb that is going to hurt a lot of the 3200 Royal Agio Cigars employees.

Closure of factories

The brand new Royal Agio Cigars office and distribution center in Duizel will be closed. A few years ago, the whole building was renovated and turned into a state of the art sustainable building. But now, Scandinavian Tobacco Group is abandoning the building. And that’s not all, STG is also closing one of its factories on the Dominican Republic, STG Moca. That will leave 800 people in the Dominican Republic without a job. STG Moca produces machine-made cigars.

Scandinavian Tobacco Group still has an office and production facility in Eersel. That used to be the factory of Henri Wintermans cigars, the brother of Royal Agio founder Jaquess Wintermans. But that location will also be abandoned. Scandinavian Tobacco Group will open a new office location in Eindhoven. Approximately 150 employees will remain in the new office. In one move, STG is abandoning the legacy of the whole Wintermans family.

Sri Lanka and Belgium

For now, the production facility of Royal Agio Cigars in Sri Lanka remains open. That factory produces most of Royal Agio’s dry-cured short fillers, such as Panter and Meharis. The production facility in Belgium remains open and will be integrated into the STG corporation. The Royal Agio Caribbean Cigars factory remains open as well, for now.