LONDON (Standard&Poor's) Feb. 22, 2008--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today its ratings and outlook on U.K.-based British American Tobacco PLC (BAT; BBB+/Stable/A-2) are unchanged after the group announced that it had won the auction for the assets of Turkish state tobacco company Tekel. We expect BAT to remain within the rating guidelines after the transaction. The cash price of $1.72 billion is 11.4x Tekel's EBITDA for 2007 and is reflective of BAT's expectations that it can grow the revenue and profitability of Tekel's own brands, as well as gain synergies with its existing operations in Turkey. BAT estimates annual cost synergies of about £30 million by the third full year for the combined business, with one-off integration
