Japan Tobacco International (JTI) aims to move Gallaher’s international headquarters from Britain to Switzerland if its £7.5 billion takeover bid for the maker of Silk Cut cigarettes and Hamlet cigars is successful.

JTI, whose offer document is likely to be mailed to Gallaher’s shareholders next week, plans to shift all the management of Gallaher’s global operations from Weybridge, Surrey, to its own European headquarters in Geneva, sources say.

They add that many of Gallaher’s top management are likely to be invited to move to Switzerland to help to manage the combined business. Those invited could include Nigel Northridge, the chief executive; Mark Rolfe, the finance director; Nigel Dunlop, group operations director; and Neil England and Stewart Hainsworth, commercial directors.

Gallaher’s purpose-built head office in Weybridge employs about 330 people on a four- hectare (ten-acre) site at the former Brooklands race track, which it has occupied since 1986. Many of these jobs might be cut. It is likely that a reduced staff would be kept at the site to run Gallaher’s UK business.

Elsewhere in the UK, Gallaher employs about 870 people at a modern manufacturing plant at Lisnafillan, Northern Ireland, and others at a cigar factory in Cardiff and at a distribution centre in Crewe. They are less likely to be affected because JTI has no rival British factories or depots. However, there may be further opportunities for cost-savings outside Britain, analysts say.

JTI sells cigarette brands including Camel and Salem. It runs 16 tobacco plants outside Japan — in Canada, Kazakhstan, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Andorra, Germany, India, Malaysia, Switzerland, Jordan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey and Russia, where it has two sites.

Outside the UK, Gallaher, which employs 11,000 people globally, operates plants in Russia, Kazakhstan, Austria, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, South Africa and Sweden.

A JTI spokesman said it was “too early to say” exactly how the groups would be combined.

Barring a rival bid, JTI hopes to conclude a deal in April or May. Gallaher shares yesterday fell 4p to £11.38, below JTI’s bid of £11.40, a sign that investors have lost hope of a rival offer. Gallaher’s board backs JTI’s bid.

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