The owner of the St. Petersburg factories, Japan Tobacco, has changed its registration to Switzerland

The founder of the Russian subsidiaries of tobacco manufacturer Japan Tobacco International (JTI, the international division of Japan Tobacco Inc) changed the country of registration twice in a short period of time, eventually settling in Switzerland. This was reported on January 24 by the Delovoy Peterburg newspaper.

It is noted that the owner of the tobacco factories of Petro LLC in St. Petersburg and Kres Neva LLC in the Leningrad region was previously the company J.T.I. Investments Gmbh, registered in Germany. Since December 5, 2025, a company with a similar name has become the owner of these assets, but with registration in Luxembourg, and since December 29, Switzerland has been designated as the country of registration.

Similar changes have also occurred at J.T.I. Innovative Products LLC. In addition, J.T.I. Investments Gmbh is the founder of the parent structure of the Russian JTI business, J.T.I. Russia LLC, whose legal relocation was registered on January 20.

The JTI head office informed the newspaper that factories in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region continue to remain part of the group.

"Technical changes in the ownership structure were made by JTI in order to further improve the operational efficiency of the company," the newspaper quoted the press service of the JTI office as saying.

The experts interviewed by the publication noted that JTI's European headquarters is located in Geneva.

"This is the same company that moved from Germany to Luxembourg and then to Switzerland. Why, I can't say for sure, perhaps for tax reasons, perhaps for internal corporate reasons, because according to open sources, JTI has a global head office located in Switzerland," said Elena Rybalchenko, an adviser to the M&A practice at BGP Litigation law firm.

Viktor Syrenko, a junior partner at VINDER, suggested that the two-fold change of participants in Russian subsidiaries in December 2025 is related to the continuation of the company's strategy aimed at maintaining business in Russia and reducing sanctions risks for the owners of these assets. At the same time, the sequence of changes, in which first a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco from one EU country (EU) became a participant, then from another, and after that a structure from a non—EU state, allows us to assume that the process can be continued.

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In 2023, it was reported that Japan Tobacco International intends to keep its business in Russia. JTI had four factories in Russia, including two factories in St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don, and about 70 offices and divisions.

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