Is ZYN a Publicly Traded Company?

If you are into nicotine pouches, you are probably aware of the fact that the market for nicotine pouches has exploded in recent years. Of course, this has meant exceptional economic opportunities for companies that are involved in this space.

One of the leading brands of nicotine pouches is ZYN. It is also one of the oldest brands of nicotine pouches.

Whilst nicotine pouches have exploded rapidly in popularity as more and more people are looking for less harmful nicotine alternatives, it’s still early. With that said, you, as an investor, probably see the rising popularity and opportunity within this space and want in as an investor. Seeing that it’s still very early and the market for nicotine pouches is growing at double-digits – and is projected to continue to do so, it seems like a very attractive investment opportunity.

This naturally begs the question: is ZYN a publicly traded company?

Let’s dig in.

Is ZYN a publicly traded company?

To determine whether ZYN is a publicly traded company, we need to clarify the company’s ownership.

ZYN was founded in 2016 by Swedish Match – the largest manufacturer of Swedish tobacco snus in the world. Swedish Match is a pioneer and a leader in the snus industry and has been making snus for decades. As such, Swedish Match has extensive experience in making oral nicotine products and was therefore able to apply this knowledge in developing tobacco-free nicotine pouches. Swedish Match’s long expertise and production capabilities were also important reasons why Swedish Match was able to become one of the first brands on the market for this product.

ZYN was originally launched in North America and quickly gained huge success. In December 2016, Swedish Match launched ZYN on the rest of the company’s focus markets. At that time, ZYN was already sold in more than 4000 stores and eleven states in the US.

Swedish Match was a publicly traded company on Nasdaq Stockholm (since it is a Swedish company) until December 30th, 2022. The reason for this is that Swedish Match was acquired by one of the leading tobacco companies in the world, Philipp Morris.

On May 11, 2022, Philip Morris Holland Holdings B.V. presented (“PMHH”), a subsidiary of Philip Morris International Inc., a public cash offer of SEK 106 per share (the “Offer”) to the shareholders of Swedish Match AB (“Swedish Match”) to transfer their shares in Swedish Match to PMHH.

On November 7, 2022, Philipp Morris announced that 82.59 percent of Swedish Match shareholders had submitted their shares.  On December 5, 2022, Swedish Match announced that the company’s board applied for the delisting of the company’s shares from Nasdaq Stockholm. On December 13, 2022, Nasdaq Stockholm approved Swedish Match’s application and the last day for trading on Nasdaq Stockholm was December 30, 2022.

In February 2023, Philip Morris Holland Holdings B.V. reached 100 percent ownership in Swedish Match AB. Since then, Swedish Match has been wholly owned by Philipp Morris.

Since ZYN is a company of Swedish Match, which, in turn, is owned by Philipp Morris, ZYN is technically not a publicly traded company. Instead, it is only a subsidiary.

With that said, Philip Morris International Inc., which owns the Netherlands subsidiary that acquired Swedish Match is indeed a publicly traded company. Philipp Morris is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “PM”.

That said, whilst ZYN is not a publicly traded company, the company that owns ZYN is. The catch is of course that ZYN does not make up the largest portion of the business for Philipp Morris. Cigarette sales do. Therefore, when you invest in Philipp Morris, you invest in the company as a whole and all of the areas that the company operates in (cigarettes, nicotine pouches, vapes, and more). Therefore, it’s important to do thorough research to understand the business as a whole and understand that you are not only investing in ZYN.