Write to James Leavey

Heinrich Villiger is the trim, fit, sole owner of one of Switzerland's last surviving tobacco family businesses; his world famous company was founded by  his grandfather, Jean Villiger, in Pfeffikon, a small town on the northern outskirts of Lucerne, in 1888.     A soft-spoken diplomat, Heinrich has been producing, selling and extolling the virtues of fine cigars, cigarillos and loose tobacco for over half a century. 

For a man who tried his first cigar when he was about 12,  then smoked cigarettes until he was 23 when he switched to premium cigars – which he still enjoys every day,  Heinrich Villiger looks far younger than his 75 years.  Early every morning, he rides one of his namesake mountain bicycles on the quiet roads around his Swiss farm for 30-40 minutes before driving across the border to his office in Walshut-Tiengen, Germany. Rather like his famous brand of bicycles, and even more famous brand of quality cigars and cigarillos, Heinrich Villiger looks like a man who could go on forever.

And, indeed, many of us hope he will, for Heinrich Villiger, chairman of the board of  Villiger Soehne Holding AG,  is a gifted entrepeneur, and one of the most influential personalities in the global cigar market.

In order to run a cigar factory successfully, his grandfather, Jean, not only had to specialise in everything there was to know about tobacco; he also had to acquire certain manual skills concerned with the art of cigar manufacture. As a result, the Villiger family, right up to the present day, has concentrated on acquiring and updating knowledge of the origin, characteristics and markets for tobacco as well as for the products made from it.

When Jean died in 1902 at the age of 42, his widow, Louise, continued to run the young company and founded a subsidiary in Waldshut-Tiengen eight years later.  She had recognised that the market in neighbouring Germany offered greater opportunities, and foresaw that Swiss quality cigars would become an international success.

In 1918,  her sons, Hans and Max Villiger, took over the company and developed it into one of Europe's main tobacco manufacturers.

The success of Villiger can be traced back to its founder's product innovations, which included Villiger-Kiel, a cigar with a goose quill mouthpiece, and Rio 6, the packaging of which fitted snugly into the bullet pouch that Swiss soldiers carried on their belt. And then came the ubiquitous Villiger Export, a short machine-made cigar, individually wrapped in tissue paper, which became the 'Havana of the ordinary people.' Today, Villiger is the most frequently smoked cigar in Switzerland and the most commonly encountered of all Swiss brands around the world.

In 1966, Heinrich and Kaspar (who is 11 years younger than his brother) took over the company from Max Villiger and, after a few years, sold their shares in its cigarette factory to concentrate on cigars and roll-your-own tobacco and pipe tobacco.

After Kaspar's decision in 1989 to dedicate himself to full-time national politics (he was President of Switzerland in 1995 and 2002), Heinrich became the sole owner of the Villiger group, after buying his brother's shares. 

Later that year, Heinrich set up his first joint-ventures - with 5th Avenue Products Trading GmbH in Germany and Intertabak AG  in Switzerland.   Both companies are joint ventures with Habanos SA and are the exclusive importers and distributors of Havanas in Germany and Switzerland. The Villiger group is now among the top importers of Cuban raw tobaccos for cigar production and was the first company exclusively licensed to produce the mini-versions of the famous Cuban brands, San Luis Rey and Romeo y Julieta. 

In 1998, Heinrich founded El Mundo del Tabacco-Import GmbH for the import of non-Cuban premium cigars.  One year later, P.T. Villiger Indonesia was also set up, a 100 per cent owned subsidiary.  In 2002,  Heinrich sold his famous Villiger bicycle company (he's got the ten remaining Villiger bikes in his double garage at home for family use), and decided to concentrate on the production and distribution of tobacco products.  He then promptly set up Villiger North America, in Miami.

Today, Villiger is the second largest cigar company in Switzerland and the third largest in Germany, as well as the number one exporter in both countries. The company's head office is still in Pfeffikon, and it also has factories in Germany, Ireland and Indonesia.  Currently, it employs about 900 people, worldwide, and distributes its trademark cigars and cigarillos to over 95 countries.

On 1 April 2005, Heinrich announced that Michael Beck, 54, the former president of Interbrew Germany, the second largest German group of breweries, would take over as  CEO of Villiger Sohne AG. 

“It was time to hand the business over to somebody else,” said Heinrich Villiger, “and I'm very happy that Michael Beck has taken over.  But I wanted to make a smooth transition, and gave Michael my old office, while I moved upstairs. Michael will now be looking after all the Villiger products, and I shall be going on with the joint venture we have with Habanos in Switzerland and Germany.  We have a good team.”

Heinrich also remains as president of the board of directors and, not least, company adviser, for he is renowned for his integrity – a family trademark – and has long been one of the key champions of tobacco in Europe.

“The socio-political argument between smokers and nonsmokers must be brought up for discussion", he said. “A smokeless society and the abolition of an entire branch of industry and the centuries-old culture and history of the tobacco are the goal of the anti-tobacco campaigns. Meanwhile, the self-determination of the enlightened consumer and the free expression of opinion of the entrepreneur are being ignored.  It is an attack on personal liberty.”

Heinrich Villiger has been chairman of the European Cigars Manufacturing Association and a key member of other trade associations for many years and has been going backwards and forwards to Brussels to discuss all aspects of tobacco legislation, as well as appearing on several TV and radio programmes to discuss the bans on smoking in public`.  He usually refers anti-smoking critics to the central differences between cigars and cigarettes. “The cigar is a luxury and not a  mass consumption article", he said. “Besides, the health endangerment of the cigar smoker is widely disputed and cannot accordingly be made valid.”

When Heinrich joined his family business at the age of 21,  there were hundreds of cigar  factories in Germany. “Now there are only about five multinational companies who control the world market for cigars –  all those middle-sized factories of the mid-20th century have disappeared,” said Heinrich, whose company is currently holding the number 10 position. In Switzerland, Dannemann has a market share of about 60 per cent; Villiger, 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, Villiger confirmed that machine-made and premium cigars are going up in North America.  “We're wondering where people are now smoking cigars,” he said.  “With all the smoking bans, we think that smoking cigars will become a seasonal pastime, i.e. people will smoke outside in spring and summer, and not smoke in the winter when they're stuck indoors. 

“There will probably be more sales in the summer than in the winter. When Italy introduced its ban on public smoking last January, cigar sales dropped by about 35 per cent.   Four months later, we're seeing those sales slowly grow again.

“It's a very complex situation for the cigar industry.  You can kill this industry if you increase taxes, but if you increase taxes, people smoke less and the revenues go down.  Last year, Germany increased its cigarette tax considerably – by the end of 2004 they lost almost 800 million Euros in taxes.  I believe there's a limit – they cannot afford to increase tobacco tax up to 100 per cent.

In America, where two-thirds of the world's premium cigars are consumed, tobacco  taxes are collected by the State.  Where they've introduced bans to discourage people smoking they don't have enough tax anymore and they need the money.

“What our industry needs is a good spectrum of cigar retailers.  Hunters and Frankau started all this with their Havana specialists, and we are following their example.    I think we should be supporting the specialist tobacco retail trade.  But they must prove to their customers that they are experts and an authority on smoking...and we're talking about premium cigars because if you're only selling cigarettes it's like selling newspapers.  And of course that retailer must have a good margin for if he doesn't he'll have no interest in selling our products. 

“The Chinese have started smoking cigars but they cannot afford premium cigars, but they can still afford a small cigar such as a Villiger Premium.  We are increasing our exports to the Far East, Japan, to Malaysia, and the UAE – people there are smoking less but smoking better.

Heinrich Villiger's wife, Martina, is a member of the Burger family which owns Dannemann, and she and Heinrich have three daughters and a son.  Their eldest daughter, Corinna, a medical doctor, has agreed to eventually take over from her father, to keep the business in the family.

“If Villiger had been a cigarette company, Corinna wouldn't have agreed, but as she said, 'I know that smoking cigars has no effect on health.'

“Sometime in the near future, perhaps in ten years' time, there will be more important things for the word's governments to concentrate on, such as feeding the millions of people who are starving every day.  Compared to those major problems, bans on smoking, fast food and alcohol will seem very minor.”