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Ernst Schneider, the man who oversaw the Davidoff empire of cigars and luxury goods, died this week in Basel. He was 88.


Schneider was part of the tobacco business for 50 years. In 1949 he began working for Max Oettinger Co., a company owned by his father-in-law. Oettinger had been founded in 1875 and was an early importer of cigars from Cuba, Brazil and Jamaica.


In 1970, Oettinger acquired Davidoff, at the time a Geneva cigar shop run by Zino Davidoff with a line of Davidoff cigars made in Cuba. Production of the cigars was moved to the Dominican Republic after 1990.

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