Korea Tobacco & Ginseng Corporation

KT&G's business goes up in a puff of smoke each day. As South Korea's top cigarette maker, it enjoys about a 70% market share and exports its smokes under more than 20 brand names to the US, China, and Central and Southeast Asia. About 20% of KT&G's sales are made outside its home country. KT&G, which in 2011 is buying a 60% stake in Indonesian tobacco firm Trisakti, partners with Imperial Tobacco Group to make its Davidoff brand in Korea. The firm escaped government control in 2002 and has since added bio and pharmaceutical production and real estate to its core cigarette-making efforts. It got its start in 1899 as the Korean imperial household's exclusive supplier of tobacco and ginseng (hence the name KT&G).