British American Tobacco Brands Corporate Structure Chart
Conducting corporate due diligence on mid-tier holding entities presents an immediate structural problem under UK disclosure rules. Under the Companies Act 2006, the public register at Companies House functions strictly in one direction. A standard registry query reveals an entity's direct directors, secretaries, and Person with Significant Control (PSC) disclosures. It does not provide a downstream index of the subsidiaries that the entity owns.
For transactional lawyers, debt advisory teams, and compliance officers handling onboarding under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, this asymmetric reporting creates blind spots. Standard filed financial statements may group subsidiaries together or omit dormant and restructuring entities entirely under reporting exemptions. Revealing the downstream holdings of a group entity requires aggregating the entire register and reversing the PSC records.
This analysis sets out the complete ownership hierarchy for BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED (company number 03550341), examining its parent holding chain and its nine direct UK subsidiaries.
Executive Summary
BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED is an active private limited company incorporated on 16 April 1998, operating under SIC code 70100 (activities of head offices). Upstream, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Batmark Limited, with the ultimate group parent identified as British American Tobacco P.L.C. Downstream reverse PSC data demonstrates that the company directly holds 75% to 100% control across nine UK corporate subsidiaries, three of which are currently in liquidation.
What a Standard Companies House Search Shows
A standard search on the Companies House register displays the immediate legal profile of BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED, its governance personnel, and its recorded upstream control.
Upstream PSC Disclosures
The company's statutory PSC register contains a single corporate entry notified on 6 April 2016:
- Batmark Limited (company number 02967280)
- Recorded Control: Ownership of shares (75% to 100%), voting rights (75% to 100%), and the right to appoint and remove directors.
Officers in Office
The company's governance register shows the current officers:
- David Patrick Ian Booth: Director, British, resident in England, born February 1974, appointed 20 September 2018.
- Roger Anthony Carr Evans: Director, British, resident in England, born December 1973, appointed 6 September 2018.
- Kingsley Wheaton: Director, British, resident in England, born February 1973, appointed 31 December 2018.
- RIDIRECTORS LIMITED: Corporate Director, appointed 27 September 2010.
- BATS LIMITED: Corporate Secretary, appointed 3 September 2024.
The public filing record also registers prior secretarial tenures, including Murray Gilliland Charles Anderson, Bridget Mary Creegan, Ann Elizabeth Griffiths, Sophie Louise Edmonds Kerr, Oliver James Martin, Jonathan Michael Guttridge, Peter McCormack, Christopher Worlock, and Combined Secretarial Services Limited. Former directorships include Paul Michael Bingham, Philip Michael Cook, David John Etchells, Donald Neil Fred Salter, Michael Lee Hendershot, Combined Nominees Limited, Combined Secretarial Services Limited, Robert James Casey, Christopher David Powell, Alan Fraser Porter, Charl Erasmus Steyn, Nicola Snook, Nikolaus Mohr, Alan Jude King, Jean-Marc Levy, Andrew Maclachlan Gray, Gary Tarrant, Paul McCrory, and Aileen Elizabeth McDonald.
While this reveals the company's internal governance and direct parent, it provides zero visibility over the assets or downstream operating companies sitting beneath it.
What the Reverse PSC Search Reveals: The Downstream Group
Companies House does not offer a parent company lookup tool to find subsidiaries of a company. To map the subsidiaries of BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED, Corp Intel indexes the entire UK PSC database and inverts the relationship. By identifying every UK company that has filed BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED as a corporate PSC, the downstream network emerges.
The search reveals exactly nine direct UK subsidiaries where BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED exercises statutory control of 75% to 100% of shares:
| Company | Number | Status | Control Band | Own Subsidiaries |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| COURTLEIGH OF LONDON LIMITED | 02650830 | Liquidation | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| THE LONDON TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED | 02761030 | Active | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| DUNHILL TOBACCO OF LONDON LIMITED | 02863410 | Active | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| AMERICAN CIGARETTE COMPANY (OVERSEAS) LIMITED | 01636764 | Active | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| ROTHMANS OF PALL MALL LIMITED | 00676565 | Active | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| BATS LIMITED | 15047996 | Active | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| AMALGAMATED TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED | 00654683 | Liquidation | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| CARRERAS LIMITED | 00384818 | Active | 75-100% shares | 0 |
| JOHN SINCLAIR LIMITED | 01070619 | Liquidation | 75-100% shares | 0 |
All nine entities sit on the immediate tier below the root company, with no registered second-tier subsidiaries recorded under them (`own_subsidiary_count: 0`). Noticeably, three entities (Courtleigh of London Limited, Amalgamated Tobacco Company Limited, and John Sinclair Limited) are registered with the status of liquidation. Corporate restructuring and entity rationalisation frequently use voluntary liquidation procedures to strike off legacy corporate shells.
When managing active enterprise risks across a group, institutional users often implement free company monitoring to capture any filing status changes across these active and winding-up entities.
Who Sits at the Top: The Upstream Ownership Chain
Tracing the ownership chain upwards establishes the Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) structure under anti-money laundering frameworks:
1. BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED (03550341) is held at the 75% to 100% tier by:
2. Batmark Limited (02967280), which holds full voting rights, share ownership, and directorship appointment rights.
3. The PSC register of Batmark Limited reveals that it is controlled (75% to 100% shares, voting rights, and appointment powers) by British American Tobacco P.L.C.
British American Tobacco P.L.C. forms the apex of this UK chain. Under UK corporate law and international KYC guidelines, identifying British American Tobacco P.L.C. completes the chain of ownership verification, satisfying the requirement to track controlling legal entities to the ultimate public parent company.
[British American Tobacco P.L.C.] (Ultimate Parent)
|
v (75-100% Control)
[Batmark Limited] (02967280)
|
v (75-100% Control)
[BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED] (03550341)
|
+-----------+-----------+-----------------------+
| (75-100% across all downstream subsidiaries) |
v v
[6 Active Subsidiaries] [3 Liquidation Subsidiaries]
- THE LONDON TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED - COURTLEIGH OF LONDON LIMITED
- DUNHILL TOBACCO OF LONDON LIMITED - AMALGAMATED TOBACCO COMPANY LIMITED
- AMERICAN CIGARETTE COMPANY LIMITED - JOHN SINCLAIR LIMITED
- ROTHMANS OF PALL MALL LIMITED
- BATS LIMITED
- CARRERAS LIMITED
Practical Due Diligence Framework for Complex Corporate Trees
When evaluating a group entity like BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED for an M&A transaction, commercial credit, or high-value contractual relationship, practitioners must review the vertical structure systematically.
Step-by-Step Corporate Tree Review Method
1. Verify Asset and IP Allocation: Holding entities often retain intellectual property portfolios or licensing rights, while operating companies retain physical operations and distribution channels. Review whether contractual counterparty rights match the actual asset-holding entity.
2. Isolate Structural Solvency: Three subsidiaries in this group sit in liquidation. When assessing guarantees or cross-company liability, verify that parent obligations do not involve liabilities tied to insolvent or dissolving entities.
3. Confirm Intra-Group Charges and Encumbrances: Conduct a review company charges on Companies House across all direct subsidiaries to verify whether debentures, fixed charges, or floating charges restrict the flow of intra-group assets.
4. Audit Cross-Appointments: In this structure, BATS LIMITED (15047996) acts both as a 100% subsidiary of BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO (BRANDS) LIMITED and as its corporate secretary. Review officer crossovers to establish operational decision paths.
Scenario: Evaluating Cross-Default Exposure in Corporate Groups
Consider an adviser reviewing an intra-group services agreement with a mid-tier UK holding entity. If the agreement includes standard cross-default clauses triggered by subsidiary insolvency, contracting with the holding company without a reverse subsidiary search presents significant risk.
If the holding company owns entities entering formal liquidation, unmonitored default provisions could accidentally trigger technical defaults on unrelated commercial facilities. A full group structure chart isolates which entities are active and which are under the control of an insolvency practitioner.
For Conveyancers, Lawyers and Lenders
Institutional lenders, corporate solicitors, and KYC onboarding analysts require definitive structural verifications before funding or transaction closing. Missing a subsidiary with an active floating charge or failing to document a full upstream chain under MLR 2017 exposes compliance teams to significant regulatory and credit risk.
Corp Intel resolves this manual burden instantly. Order a dated, comprehensive Corporate Org Chart for £25 to secure an end-to-end, visual mapping of any UK holding structure directly from Register of Companies data.
How to Obtain a Group Structure Chart
Generating an end-to-end corporate group map manually requires downloading individual filings, cross-referencing PSC records across multiple tiers, and manually tracking corporate names against company numbers. Corp Intel automates this process by analysing the Register of Companies and PSC records to construct a complete upstream and downstream map.
To download a clean, dated visual overview of any corporate structure, you can order a Corporate Org Chart directly for £25.