British American Tobacco poised to take Brazil's Souza Cruz private

British American Tobacco has purchased the final necessary number of shares in Brazilian subsidiary Souza Cruz, the country's largest cigarette maker, to enable it to take the company private in coming months.

An auction launched by wholly owned subsidiary British American Tobacco Prestação de Serviços has snapped up BRL 9.33bn (£1.58bn), or 22.4% of Souza Cruz, to take London-based BAT's total ownership to 97.7% of the company.

This buyout has given BAT total control over Souza Cruz, which will now cancel its registration as a publicly listed company.

As it now owns over 95% of Souza Cruz, BAT said it will now complete the process of compulsorily buying up the remaining minority shares, upon which Souza Cruz will become a wholly owned subsidiary of BAT.

In March 2015, the London-listed group announced its first public tender offer to acquire up 24.7% of Souza Cruz shares it didn't own at a cash offer price of BRL26.75 per share, which represented a premium of 30.0% the volume weighted average closing price per share in the preceding three months.

The purchase is part of the FTSE 100 group's plans to invest in "sustainable growth", which has also seen it invest $4.7bn cash to maintain its 42% equity position in Reynolds American, which has merged with US rival Lorillard.