Altria

In 1847 the tobacconist Philip Morris opened a shop on Bond Street in London. Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. was incorporated in New York in 1902, and in 1919 the company incorporated in Virginia as Philip Morris & Co. Ltd., Inc.⁠[1]

In the mid-1950s Philip Morris began using cowboy imagery to advertise Marlboro, and by the mid-1970s it was the second-largest U.S. cigarette maker.⁠[2]

In 1970 the company took control of Miller Brewing. It bought the soft-drink maker Seven-Up in 1978 and sold it in 1986.⁠[2]

In 1985 Philip Morris Companies was incorporated as the publicly held parent of Philip Morris Inc.⁠[2]

That year Philip Morris Companies paid $5.8 billion in cash for General Foods, at the time the largest non-oil merger.⁠[3]

In 1988 Philip Morris Companies paid $13.1 billion for Kraft, raising its bid from an initial $90 per share to $106 per share. In 2000 it paid $14.9 billion for the Nabisco food business and assumed about $4 billion of debt.⁠[3]

On November 23, 1998, attorneys general for 46 states, the District of Columbia and five territories signed the Master Settlement Agreement negotiated with Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard, which were to pay about $206 billion through 2025. It also banned outdoor billboard advertising and disbanded existing tobacco trade associations.⁠[4]

In 1999 the Justice Department sued Philip Morris USA, Altria and other tobacco companies under the RICO Act. In 2006 Judge Gladys Kessler found the major cigarette makers liable for civil RICO violations, writing that they “lied, misrepresented, and deceived the American public.” Court-ordered corrective statements began running in television and newspaper ads in November 2017.⁠[5]

In November 2001 Philip Morris Companies proposed renaming the parent company Altria Group, Inc., while its tobacco companies, Miller Brewing and Kraft Foods kept their names. Chairman and CEO Geoffrey Bible said the name came from the Latin altus, to “reach higher,” and called the change an “evolution of Philip Morris Companies Inc.” following the Nabisco acquisition and the Kraft initial public offering.⁠[6]

In 2002 it sold Miller Brewing to South African Breweries.⁠[2]

Stockholders approved the change in April 2002, and the new name took effect on January 27, 2003.⁠[7]

On March 30, 2007, Altria completed the spin-off of Kraft Foods Inc., distributing 0.692024 of a Kraft share for each Altria share. Before the distribution Altria owned about 88.9% of Kraft’s outstanding shares.⁠[8]

The same year Altria acquired the tobacco company John Middleton from privately held Bradford Holdings.⁠[1]

On March 28, 2008, Altria completed the spin-off of Philip Morris InternationalPhilip Morris InternationalPhilip Morris International Inc. is a consumer goods company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, that sells cigarettes and smoke-free products such as heated tobacco and nicotine pouches; it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.Open the full entry, distributing one share of the new company for each Altria share. Altria continued to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MO, and both companies were constituents of the S&P 100 and S&P 500S&P 500The S&P 500 is a U.S. large-cap equity index compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It includes 500 leading companies, covers about 80% of available market capitalization and is described by S&P DJI as “widely regarded as the best single gauge of large-cap U.S. equities.”Open the full entry indices. Altria was then moving its corporate headquarters to Richmond, Virginia.⁠[9]

On January 6, 2009, Altria completed its acquisition of UST for $69.50 per share in cash, a deal valued at about $11.7 billion including about $1.3 billion of assumed debt. Afterwards Altria’s tobacco operating companies owned brands including Marlboro, Copenhagen, Skoal and Black & Mild, and Altria wholly owned Ste. Michelle Wine Estates.⁠[10]

When Anheuser-Busch InBev combined with SABMiller in October 2016, Altria received cash and a 9.6% stake in the combined company.⁠[11]

On December 20, 2018, Altria announced a $12.8 billion cash investment for a 35% economic interest in the e-vapor company JUUL Labs, valuing JUUL at $38 billion. Altria agreed not to acquire more than 35%, not to sell its shares for six years, and to participate in e-vapor only through JUUL while providing services to it.⁠[12]

In March 2019 Altria completed the acquisition of a 45% interest in the cannabinoid company Cronos Group.⁠[11]

With its third-quarter results on October 31, 2019, Altria recorded a non-cash pre-tax impairment charge of $4.5 billion on its JUUL investment, pointing to indicators such as an increased likelihood of FDA action to remove flavored e-vapor products and e-vapor bans in some U.S. cities and states. Its net loss for the quarter was $2.6 billion.⁠[13]

A further $4.1 billion fourth-quarter charge, mainly from higher discount rates, brought the 2019 total to $8.6 billion.⁠[11]

In April 2020 the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint alleging that agreements between Altria and JUUL, including the investment, eliminated competition in violation of antitrust laws. On February 24, 2022, Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell dismissed the charges.⁠[14]

On June 30, 2023, the Commission vacated the initial decision and dismissed the complaint in the public interest.⁠[15]

Chairman and CEO Howard Willard, who was recovering from COVID-19, decided to step down, retiring effective April 14, 2020. The board elected Billy Gifford as CEO, separated the chairman and CEO roles and named Thomas Farrell independent chairman effective April 16.⁠[16]

On October 1, 2021, Altria completed the sale of its Ste. Michelle Wine Estates business.⁠[1]

In the first quarter of 2023 Altria exchanged its entire JUUL interest for a non-exclusive global license to certain JUUL heated tobacco intellectual property, recording a $250 million pre-tax loss. It also agreed to buy the e-vapor company NJOY for about $2.75 billion in cash plus up to $500 million tied to regulatory outcomes.⁠[17]

On May 10, 2023, Altria announced a $235 million agreement, subject to court approval, to resolve at least 6,000 JUUL-related state and federal cases, including about 4,500 personal injury and about 1,400 school district cases. Altria said it still believed the claims were “meritless.”⁠[18]

On June 1, 2023, Altria completed its acquisition of NJOY Holdings. NJOY ACE was then the only pod-based e-vapor product with FDA market authorizations.⁠[19]

JUUL filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission in July 2023. In late January 2025 the ITC finalized a ruling that NJOY ACE infringed four JUUL patents, and the resulting exclusion order barred imports and sales of the device and its pods. Altria stopped U.S. sales of NJOY ACE effective March 31, 2025.⁠[20]

In April 2024 Altria assigned the U.S. commercialization rights to the IQOS Tobacco Heating System to Philip Morris International, recording a $2.7 billion pre-tax gain. Full-year 2024 net revenues fell 1.9% to $24.0 billion, and diluted EPS rose 43.1% to $6.54.⁠[21]

In December 2025 the FDA authorized Helix’s on! PLUS nicotine pouches in three flavors at 6 mg and 9 mg.⁠[22]

On December 11, 2025, Altria announced that Billy Gifford, CEO since 2020, would retire effective May 14, 2026, at the conclusion of the annual meeting of shareholders, and that the board had elected Sal Mancuso, executive vice president and CFO since 2020, to succeed him.⁠[23]

Mancuso succeeded Gifford as CEO immediately after the annual meeting.⁠[24]

In 2025 Altria’s net revenues fell 3.1% to $23.3 billion, diluted EPS fell 37.0% to $4.12 and adjusted diluted EPS rose 4.4% to $5.42. It paid $7.0 billion in dividends.⁠[22]

At December 31, 2025, Altria employed approximately 5,900 people.⁠[25]