Tobacco Institute
Number 47 1957 Annual Report Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co., Inc.
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- 1. Liggett Myers Author
- Affiliation:
Liggett Myers
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M
TO THE STOCKHOLDERS:
This Forty-Seventh Annual Report of your Company's operations for 1957 gives you a general over-all
picture of its activities, as well as its audited financial statements. Following the trend of the
times,
there were unavoidable increases in manufacturing costs, including leaf tobacco and other mate-
rials, together with increases in selling and promotional expenses, which this year included the
heavy
initial costs of introducing our new OASIS brand. The results for the year, however, reflect
progress.
The comparable results of operations for the years ended December 31, 1957 and 1956 indicate
net sales for the year 1957 amounted to $570,384,860 the highest reported since 1953. Net income
applicable to common stock amounted to $26,812,420, equal to $6.85 per share, compared to $6.39
per share in 1956. The ratio of such income to net sales increased from 4.42% in 1956 to 4.70%
in 1957. Notes payable to banks at the end of the year were $53,310,000, representing a reduction of
$24,690,000 from the end of the previous year. As compared with the results for 1956, however,
interest on bank loans showed an increase of about $1,349,000, reflecting to a considerable extent
the much higher interest rates in effect during 1957.
It is significant that during the year a number of the most eminent men in medical science and
research made important statements about cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The author of the intro-
duction to Eric Northrup's book "Science Looks at Smoking" made the following statement:
"The evidence from both approaches, statistical and experimental, does not ap-
pear sufficiently significant to me to warjant forsaking the pleasure of smoking."
HARRY S. N. GREENE, M.C., C.M.
Professor, Chairman, Department of Pathology,
Yale University School of Medicine
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numbe47
1957
ANNLI AL
REPORT
LIGGETT & MYERS TOB4CCO CO., INC.
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At a later date, Dr. Greene further stated in his testimony before a Congressional Committee:
"My feeling in this business is that there isn't anything in tobacco that is
carcinogenic, that isgoing to do the individttal any harm..."
Other statements on this subject also made before the Congressional Committee, include those of the
following outstanding and impartial medical authorities:
"I would finally state then that the total evidence I have tried to review fails
to establish any sound basis on which a causative influence can be assigned to
cigarette smoking in the production of cancer of the lung."
IAN G. MACDONALD, M.D.
Cancer specialist, Professor of Surgery, Radiolo-
gist, University of Southern California Medical
School; National Director, American Cancer So-
ciety; Chairman on Cancer, American Medical
Association.
"I find no reason to modify my previous opinion that the evidence, taken as a
whole, does not establish, on any reasonable scientific basis, that cigarette
smoking causes htng cancer. Ott the contrary, I have found more and stronger
reasons to doubt this conclusion."
JOSEPH BERKSON, M.D.
Head of Biometry and Medical Statistics,
Mayo Clinic
As recently as December 27, 1957, Sir Ronald Fisher, internationally known as the "father of modern
statistics" and professor of genetics at Cambridge University, England, in an address at
Indianapolis,
before the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that evidence linking cigarette
smoking with lung eancer is decidedly "inconclusive." He was quoted in the New York Herald Tribune
on December 28, 1957, as having further stated that warnings that cigarettes may cause cancer are
"terrorist" propaganda.
Meanwhile, in the laboratories of our great medical centers and universities, the search goes on for
the all-important unknown of medical science - the cure for all forms of cancer. If the past history
of
medical research repeats itself, the answer will be found. Y
The Board of Directors joins me in expressing appreciation for the cooperation and loyal support
of stockholders and employees.
Respectfully,
i"
February 3, 1958
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The significance to the national economy of a modern corporation like
Liggett & Myers is greater today than ever before in history.
Your Company is owned by thousands of individuals, and hundreds of
institutions representing many more thousands of people.
Directly, your Company is influential in the economic well-being of thou-
sands of employees; indirectly, it provides economic opportunity for addi-
tional thousands of people at home and abroad.
The smokers and others who rely on your Company's products number
in the millions. In profits earned, in taxes paid, it contributes significantly
to an ever-expanding national economy.
In 1957 again, Liggett & Myers has met these responsibilities by con-
tinuing to pursue an aggressive policy in all areas of research, manufacture
and sales; by employing modern management methods; and by turning out
what your Company believes to be the very best products of their kind.
0 wnershi p
There are now approximately 46,600 Common and Preferred stockholders
of Liggett & Myers. This is an increase of 1,200 stockholders (about 2.6 per
cent) over 1956.
The stock of your Company is widely held, ranging from a few shares
in the hands of thousands of individual stockholders to many hundreds of
shares owned by hospitals, educational institutions, profit-sharing trusts,
insurance companies, estates, banks and investment groups.
Approximately 76 per cent of the total stock of your Company, both
Common and Preferred, was voted either by person or proxy, at the last
annual stockholders' meeting of Liggett & Myers on March 11, 1957.
Employees
Liggett & Myers is justly proud of its excellent relations with its 9,000
employees, whose average length of service is well over ten years.
Working conditions are unsurpassed. The factories and offices are the
most modern in the industry, air-conditioned, superbly lighted, and equipped
with every known device to insure safety and guard health. Available to all
employees is a complete progressive benefits plan, a medical staff in atten-
dance at all times, and cafeterias serving excellent meals at cost.
In 1911, when Liggett & Myers was founded,
the number of the Company's stockholders was
limited. Today, your Company is owned by well
over 46,000 individuals and institutions repre-
senting a complete cross-section of America.
About nine thousand employees work in modern,
efficient, pleasant surroundings, turning out
your Company's products.
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of the many improvements which have been made in the growing, processing
and packaging of tobacco.
Working closely with our modern factories, these laboratories make
constant quality tests to make sure that all Liggett & Myers tobacco products
measure up to the most exacting standards. In addition, they constantly seek
ways in which your Company's products can be improved.
One recent example is the "Miracle Tip" which was developed in our
research laboratories and is now used on L&M and Oasis cigarettes. Your
Company was the first to announce in September 1957 the granting of a
U. S. Government patent for a modern cigarette filter ... The pure white
"Miracle Tip."
Another example is the new Accu-Ray quality control system, developed
at the Company's request by the Industrial Nucleonics Corporation and now
widely used in other industries as well. Accu-Ray is one of the greatest ad-
vances in the manufacture of cigarettes in the last thirty years. Each and
every cigarette made by the Company is perfectly packed ... 14 per cent
more so than cigarettes made without Accu-Ray. As a result, all Liggett &
Myers cigarettes now burn more evenly, have no "hot spots" or "hard draw,"
and, therefore, give more smoking pleasure.
The Liggett & Myers Research Program is centered in Durham, North
Carolina. The laboratories are considered the finest and most advanced in
the industry.
The program is further implemented by grants to universities for tobacco
research, and for major research programs, by the use of scientific organiza-
tions including Arthur D. Little, Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Liggett & Myers Accu-Ray quality control
is a nuclear gauge which passes a continuous
stream of electrons through the cigarette
and analyzes it while it is actually being made.
Tobacco
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Liggett & Myers tobacco buyers today cover every important tobacco market,
selecting only the choicest tobaccos to meet the exacting standards set for
Liggett & Myers products.

More than ever today, your Company's promotion must not only be
aggressive but continuous in order to reach again and again the present and
potentially new customers in every corner of the country.
Well over 80 per cent of the nation's homes today have television. It is the
only selling medium which permits your Company's products to be shown
at the same time they are described. As a result, a major share of the Com-
pany's advertising is now concentrated in this greatest of all sales media.
CHESTERFIELD - The Chesterfield "Men of America" commercials which
you hear and see daily are the result of nationwide consumer research studies.
They are the talk of the television industry, including the most critical tele-
vision columnists. Combining Chesterfield's sales message with folk ballad
music, this series vividly features real people in various industries across the
nation. You get the reality of such typical American scenes as a wheat farm
in the Northwest, a logging camp in Idaho, a dam site in Montana, and a
cattle ranch in Washington. These commercials are bringing the Chesterfield
sales messages into millions of homes on the FRANK SINATRA SHOW, the EDDIE
FISHER SHOW and the POLLY BERGEN SHOW.
L&M - The "Live Modern" promotion behind the L&M brand is one of the
most successful in the history of cigarette advertising. "Live Modern" tele-
vision commercials won top honors in Billboard Magazine's Fifth Annual
TV Commercials Award both as "most effective and convincing" and "most
original and imaginative." You see these commercials on GuNSINtoKE, the
country's top-rated television show on the air. You also see them on the new
GEORGE GOBEL SHOW and on television's award-winning police drama,
DRAGNET, which was one of the programs nominated for the Freedoms
Foundation Award.
OASIS - National distribution of Oasis is backed by promotion in network
and spot television. Oasis sponsors one of the most successful new programs
on network TV, CLUB OASIS on which you see such popular guest stars as
Dean Martin, Jimmy Durante, Eddie Fisher, Fred Waring, and Jo Stafford.
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An estimated ten billion viewer commercial ntinute
impressions tivere made in behalf of your Compatn'.r
products on network TV alone durin,; 1957 by TV stars
such as Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher, George Gobel,
James Arness, Jack Webb and Dean Martin.

Liggett & Myers plants are strategically
located near the big tobacco markets
and are considered the most
modern in the industry.
"Gunsmoke" star James Arness, comedian
Edgar Bergen, Ben Alexander of "Dragnet"
and singer Edye Gorme were among the 60
thousand visitors who toured your Company's
plants in 1957. Visitors are always welcome.
Factories
To date, more than a half million people have toured Liggett & Myers fac-
tories. Many of these visitors are stockholders in the Company, and have seen
for themselves the infinite care used in the manufacture and packaging of
the Company's products. The modern, up-to-date machinery used in all
departments is the finest equipment money can buy. Your Company extends
a cordial invitation to you and your friends to visit the Liggett & Myers
cigarette factories whenever you are in the vicinity. Our cigarette factories
are located at Durham, North Carolina and Richmond, Virginia.
In St. Louis, Missouri, a third main factory makes chewing tobacco and
many brands of pipe tobacco. In the bright and burley tobacco-growing
states are located conditioning and storage facilities covering hundreds of
acres. The Company also has plants in the Near East where Turkish tobaccos
grown there are processed for our cigarette blends. These plants are at Izmir
and Samsun in Turkey, and Cavalla and Xanthi in Greece.
Research
Nearly forty years ago your Company recognized that through continuous
research, the quality of our tobacco products could not only be controlled,
but raised to a point of unmatched excellence.
Today, such quality in Liggett & Myers products is an accomplished fact.
Through study of our own and competitive products, through analyses of
thousands of pounds of tobacco, your Company's products enjoy the benefits
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Hundreds of acres of land in the United States
are now producing Turkish tobacco, an
agricultural development which your
Company helped pioneer.
Your Company's cigarettes are available
to our Armed Forces all over the world.
These buyers have grown up in the tobacco business and their average
length of service is greater than the Company average. Through long years
of experience they have gained what every Liggett & Myers tobacco buyer
must have - an instinctive eye for good tobacco and a thorough knowledge
of how to buy it.
For years, Liggett & Myers research scientists have contributed important
research toward continuing tobacco improvement programs with the U. S.
Department of Agriculture and State Agricultural Departments.
Your Company helped play an important part in the pioneering of the
growth of Turkish tobacco in this country. Ten years ago, Turkish tobacco
was raised by only a handful of farmers mostly on an experimental basis.
Today, many farmers are raising Turkish-type tobaccos as a profitable crop.
In addition to providing a new use for previously unproductive land, growing
Turkish tobacco has opened new economic opportunities in this country.
In time, the tobacco industry may be assured of a continuing domestic supply
of this crop which is so essential in the seasoning of cigarettes.
Non-filter cigarettes
Despite the rapid growth of filtered and mentholated brands, most people
still prefer a non-filtered cigarette. Today, more than half of all cigarette
business is still concentrated in non-filter brands, and Chesterfield continues
to be one of the most popular in both King and Regular sizes. Its attractive,
clean white pack is well known to millions of its friends around the globe.
In addition to Chesterfield, the Company continues to produce other non-
filter brands that have a loyal following in many areas the world over. Among
these are Coupon, Fatima, Home Run, Picayune, Piedmont, Spur and others.
~....~ Filter cigarettes
Continual international promotion has made
your Company's products known and enjoyed
in practically every corner of the world.
The continuing success of the L&M Filter brand has advanced it to a posi-
tion among the top-selling brands of all types, and the second largest-selling
filter brand.
The importance to the Company of this continued growth is readily
apparent from the gains of the filter segment of the market. From a 30 per
cent share of total market in 1956, filters rose above the 40 per cent level
before the end of 1957.
The demand for the L&M brand was assured of further gains early in
1957 when the national distribution of the L&M crushproof box - com-
panion to the L&M King and Regular packs - was completed. In fact, L&M
is the only filter cigarette which is now offered for sale in these three sizes
in the United States.
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1 g

Not so long ago, when you went to your grocery or chain store, you had a
choice of about 1500 products. In the same stores today, some 3600 different
products are competing for your attention. Liggett & Myers, in 1957, intro-
duced new kinds of display racks for dealers. These racks, for both carton
and individual pack sales, were designed to take up a minimum of space
and at the same time offer a maximum of display for your Company's
products. The reception of these new racks by dealers across the country
has been enthusiastic, many reporting increased sales of all our cigarette
brands displayed.
Today, carton sales account for about 65 per cent of all cigarette sales.
To meet this trend, your Company, in 1957, adopted new carton designs for
both the Chesterfield and L&M brands. The cartons were designed to give
maximum visibility for the shopper, and to combine certain features wel-
come to dealers (pilferage-proof construction, perforated ends). These
redesigned cartons, along with the new Oasis carton, are the most modern
in the industry, and you can see for yourself how they stand out on the racks
and on the dealers' shelves.
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"The Pied Piper," a 90-minute color spectacular In the most widely-circulated national magazines
in November, starred Van Johnson and and in leading newspapers in every region, customers are
brought the story of your Company's products reminded of Liggett & Myers products with
to nearly 30,000,000 viewers. advertisements that have been widely commended.
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1957 OPERATIONS
A SUMMARY OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR 1957
1957 1956
Net sales
.......................................................................................... $570,384,
860 $564,965,808
Profit before taxes
............................................................................ 61,894,607 58,366,750
Income and franchise taxes
.............................................................. 33,621,000 31,916,000
Profit before preferred dividends
...................................................... 28,273,607 26,450,750
Net income after preferred dividends
................................................ 26,812,420 24,989,563
Percentage of net sales
...................................................................... 4.70% 4.42%
Net income per share of common stock ............................................ $6.85 $6.39
Dividends paid per share of common stock ........................................ $5.00 $5.00
Current assets
.................................................................................. $417,412,219 $44
4,693,169
Current liabilities
............................................................................ 89,040,853 115,771,006
Ratio
................................................................................................ 4.7
to 1 3.8 to 1
Funded debt
.........:............................................................................ 95,750,000 1
01,500,000
Capital stock
.................................................................................... 118,693,125 11
8,693,125
Paid-in surplus end of year ......... 19,417,405 19
417
405
.......................................................
Earned surplus end of year ................................................................ .t
rR'
133,538,415 ,
,
126,289,800
Approximate number of stockholders .............................................. 46,600 45,400
ANNUAL STOCKHOLDERS' MEETING
The Annual Stockholders' Meeting will be held at 91 Sip Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey, at 2:30
P.M., Tuesday,
March 25, 1958.
Proxies will be mailed to stockholders February 21, 1958. Stockholders who are unable to attend the
meeting
are urged to sign their proxies and return them promptly to the Company so that the stock of the
Company will be
represented as fully as possible at the meeting.
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