A merger is the latest sign of Big Tobacco’s resilience. 一场象征大烟草复苏的兼并。

　　British American Tobacco (BAT) announced on January 17th a final deal to buy Reynolds American for $49 billion. 英美烟草公司（BAT）在1月17日宣布最终以490亿美元收购美国雷诺兹。

　　BAT already owns 42% of Reynolds; buying the rest of it will create the world’s largest listed tobacco company by sales and profits. BAT已经拥有4雷诺兹42%的股份，收购其余股份将创造世界上在销售和利润上最大的上市烟草公司。

　　It will peddle brands such as Dunhill, Camel and Newport. 它旗下品牌如登喜路、骆驼和新港。

　　The casual observer might imagine the deal to be a frantic bid to revive an ailing industry. 外行人可能会认为这笔交易——去振兴一个危害人身体健康的行业是一个疯狂的举动。

　　On the contrary. 其实不然。

　　Cigarettes may kill you, but the big companies that make them are rather healthy. 香烟可能杀死你，但大公司会使他们危害小一点。

　　That is despite a decline in smoking rates. 尽管吸烟率有所下降。

　　In 2015 just over a fifth of adults smoked, estimates the World Health Organisation, down from almost a quarter ten years earlier. 据世界卫生组织估计，2015年成年人吸烟人数刚刚超过五分之一，低于十年前的四分之一。

　　This drop hardly helps companies, but it isn’t ruinous either. 但是这种下降对公司没有任何好处，也没有太大损害。

　　Smoking is still popular in certain spots. 吸烟在某些场所仍很流行。

　　More than three-quarters of men light up in Indonesia, for example. 例如，印度尼西亚有超过四分之三的男人在吸烟。

　　The habit is becoming more common among men in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. 这种习惯在非洲和地中海东部的男性中越来越普遍。

　　And though global smoking rates have fallen, population growth means that about 1.1bn people still smoke, roughly as many as did in 2005. 尽管全球吸烟率已下降，但人口增长意味着仍有约11亿人在吸烟，和2005年的人数差不多。

　　This, combined with rising prices, means that the value of retail sales jumped by 29% in the decade to 2015, according to Euromonitor, a data firm. 据一家数据公司Euromonitor统计，至2015的十年间，这个数据与上涨的物价一起意味着零售的价值跃升了29%。

　　The gravest threat to big cigarette makers comes from rivals. 对于大的香烟制造商来说，最大的威胁来自于竞争对手。

　　Indeed, this week’s deal increases the chance that Altria, which sells Marlboro in America, will be bought by Philip Morris International,  事实上，本周的交易增加了在美国销售万宝路的Altria公司将被Philip Morris International收购的机会，

　　which sells Marlboro elsewhere and is the industry’s leader to date—a scary prospect even for a merged BAT and Reynolds. 这家公司是在其他地方销售万宝路，至今都是业界领袖，即使对于合并后的BAT和Reynolds，它仍有着惊人的前景。

　　Regardless of whether their rivals’ deal proceeds, the merger of BAT and Reynolds has clear logic. 不管他们对手的交易是否进行，BAT和Reynolds的合并都有着显而易见的道理。

　　The firms claim it could save at least $400 million each year. 该公司声称这样每年至少可以节省4亿美元。

　　Reynolds will also give BAT access to America, a market that once looked repulsively litigious but now seems stable. Reynolds也将BAT引入了美国，一度看起来极其排斥的市场现在似乎趋于稳定。

　　Companies still operate under a vast settlement reached with American states in 1998, but separate class-action suits have turned out to be less costly than feared. 公司的运作依旧是在1998年与美国各州达成的一系列协议之下，不过独立集体诉讼的成本却比公司所担心的更低。