【经济学人】卷“烟”重来丨2017.01.21丨总第790期

BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BAT) announced on January 17th a final deal to buy Reynolds American for $49bn. BAT already owns 42% of Reynolds; buying the rest of it will create the world’s largest listed tobacco company by sales and profits. It will peddle brands such as Dunhill, Camel and Newport. The casual observer might imagine the deal to be a frantic bid to revive an ailing industry. On the contrary. Cigarettes may kill you, but the big companies that make them are rather healthy.

英美烟草公司（BAT）在1月17日宣布最终以490亿美元收购美国雷诺兹。BAT已经拥有4雷诺兹42%的股份，收购其余股份将创造世界上在销售和利润上最大的上市烟草公司。它旗下品牌如登喜路、骆驼和新港。外行人可能会认为这笔交易是一个疯狂的投标，就振兴一个危害人身体健康的行业而言。相反地，香烟可能杀死你，但大公司会使他们危害小一点。

That is despite a decline in smoking rates. In 2015 just over a fifth of adults smoked, estimates the World Health Organisation, down from almost a quarter ten years earlier. This drop hardly helps companies, but it isn’t ruinous either.

尽管吸烟率有所下降。据世界卫生组织估计，2015年成年人吸烟人数刚刚超过五分之一，低于十年前的四分之一。但是这种下降对公司没有任何好处，也没有太大损害。

• World Health Organisation 世界卫生组织
  

Smoking is still popular in certain spots. More than three-quarters of men light up in Indonesia, for example. The habit is becoming more common among men in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean (see chart). And though global smoking rates have fallen, population growth means that about 1.1bn people still smoke, roughly as many as did in 2005. This, combined with rising prices, means that the value of retail sales jumped by 29% in the decade to 2015, according to Euromonitor, a data firm.

吸烟在某些场所仍很流行。例如，印度尼西亚有超过四分之三的男人在吸烟。这种习惯在非洲和地中海东部的男性中越来越普遍（见图表）。尽管全球吸烟率已下降，但人口增长意味着仍有约1.1亿人在吸烟，和2005年的人数差不多。据一家数据公司Euromonitor统计，至2015的十年间，这个数据与上涨的物价一起意味着零售的价值跃升了29%。

The gravest threat to big cigarette makers comes from rivals. Indeed, this week’s deal increases the chance that Altria, which sells Marlboro in America, will be bought by Philip Morris International, which sells Marlboro elsewhere and is the industry’s leader to date—a scary prospect even for a merged BAT and Reynolds.

对于大的香烟制造商来说，最大的威胁来自于竞争对手。事实上，本周的交易增加了在美国销售万宝路的Altria公司将被Philip Morris International收购的机会，这家公司是在其他地方销售万宝路，至今都是业界领袖，即使对于合并后的BAT和Reynolds，它仍有着惊人的前景。

• gravest  严肃的，严重的
  

Regardless of whether their rivals’ deal proceeds, the merger of BAT and Reynolds has clear logic. The firms claim it could save at least $400m each year. Reynolds will also give BAT access to America, a market that once looked repulsively  litigious but now seems stable. Companies still operate under a vast settlement reached with American states in 1998, but separate class-action suits have turned out to be less costly than feared.

不管他们对手的交易是否进行，BAT和Reynolds的合并都有着显而易见的道理。该公司声称这样每年至少可以节省4亿美元。Reynolds也将BAT引入了美国，一度看起来极其排斥的市场现在似乎趋于稳定。公司的运作依旧是在1998年与美国各州达成的一系列协议之下，不过独立集体诉讼的成本却比公司所担心的更低。

• repulsively 冷淡地

• class-action 集体诉讼

New regulations have not snuffed out tobacco firms, either. Countries have passed a battery of laws to fight smoking, including taxes and bans on advertising and on smoking in pubs. Tobacco companies have fought these ferociously, suing countries such as Australia for prohibiting logos on cigarette packs, for example. But some rules had hidden benefits. Bans on advertising lower marketing costs and make it harder for young upstarts to challenge established brands.

新的规定也并没有消灭烟草公司。各个国家已经通过了一系列关于禁烟的法律，包括税收措施，禁止吸烟的相关广告以及禁止在酒吧吸烟等。烟草公司强烈抵制这些措施，例如起诉澳大利亚等国家在香烟包装上标有禁止类标志。但有一些规则对他们有潜在的好处。禁止广告的规定降低了营销成本，并且增大了想要建立新品牌的暴发户的创业难度。

• ferociously野蛮地，残忍地,

Electronic cigarettes would seem another existential threat. But they increasingly appear to be an opportunity. Large tobacco firms are investing in such “reduced-risk” products, as they term them. New requirements for e-cigarettes in Europe and America, finalised last year, may also hinder smaller companies’ ability to innovate. That could help Big Tobacco gain even greater market share: large firms may be the only ones with resources to navigate complex rules.

电子烟似乎是存在的另一个威胁。但也渐渐变成机遇。大的烟草公司正在创造一种“低危害香烟”的产品，正如他们的名字。去年在欧洲和美国敲定了对电子烟的新要求，这也许阻碍了小公司发展的创新能力。但也会帮助大的烟草公司获得更大的市场份额：大公司也许是唯一拥有资源来掌控复杂规则的人。

•  resources 来源;勇气;才智;谋略;有助于实现目标的东西
  

Companies are particularly bullish on new products that heat tobacco, without burning it. These gadgets are more satisfying to smokers than e-cigarettes, which contain nicotine but no tobacco, so may encourage more smokers to switch. Cigarette executives claim that would be a health boon: just heating tobacco avoids much of the nasty stuff that comes with combustion.

企业尤其看好这些不用点燃但能加热烟草的新产品。这些包含了尼古丁但没有烟草的产品对于吸烟者来说比电子烟更令人满意，因此也许会鼓励更多的吸烟者进行转变。烟草公司的高管认为这将是健康的福音：仅加热烟草避免了燃烧带来的危害。

• gadgets 小机械，小器具

•  nicotine尼古丁;[化]烟碱

Less encouraging for health is the prospect that some smokers might switch to the new products rather than give up tobacco completely. For years companies have sold to a shrinking share of the population. If enough would-be quitters switch to “safer” cigarettes instead, firms could slow or even reverse what had seemed a permanent downward trend. Far from fading away, Big Tobacco might be on the verge of a new boom.

就健康而言不太乐观的前景是，一些吸烟者可能会转向使用新产品而不是完全放弃烟草。多年来，烟草公司的买方人数已经缩水。如果足够多想要戒烟的人转而购买更加“安全”的烟草，烟草公司可能会减缓甚至扭转那些看似永久的下降趋势。大烟草不仅不会衰落，甚至可能会迎来繁荣。

If so, the company formed by BAT and Reynolds stands to gain, as it will combine the two firms’ research into reduced-risk products. That will help it compete against Philip Morris, which has spent nearly twice as much on research as BAT. Philip Morris is now seeking approval in America to market its heated tobacco product as safer than traditional cigarettes; it submitted its application to American regulators in December. The firm already reckons the product might add $1bn in profit by 2020. André Calantzopoulos, Philip Morris’s chief executive, describes a possible future in which his giant cigarette company phases out cigarette sales.

若是如此，英美烟草公司和雷诺兹组成的公司会是获利的一方，因为将结合两家公司进行低危害香烟的研发。并且这将有利于其与Philip Morris的竞争，后者已经在研发上花费近似英美烟草公司两倍的资金。（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）11月份，它们已经向美国监管者上交了相关申请。Philip Morris已经计算出：到2020年，这类产品将会为其增加10亿美元的收益。André Calantzopoulos，Philip Morris公司的首席执行官，形容了一种未来的可能性：他的烟草巨头企业将逐步淘汰零售香烟。

Many health advocates view such declarations sceptically. For now, combustible products still account for almost all of cigarette firms’ revenue. And tobacco remains responsible for more than one in nine of all adult deaths.

许多健康生活的倡议者认为一些声明值得怀疑。现今，传统香烟仍旧占据香烟公司收益的全部。并且，香烟依然是超过九分之一的人死亡的原因。

• combustible易燃的，可燃的

翻译 ▍倚南窗，eve，甜甜，小静菁

审核 ▍向北

编辑 ▍毛毛

背景 ▍沙漠下雨