British American Tobacco H1 Pre-tax Profit Rises - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - British American Tobacco plc (BATS.L, BTI) reported Thursday that its first-half profit before taxation rose to 3.97 billion pounds from last year's 3.03 billion pounds. However, earnings per share were 117.7 pence, down from 121.8 pence last year.

The inclusion of the results from acquisitions completed in 2017, notably RAI, was partially offset by a translational foreign exchange headwind.

The foreign exchange impact on the Group's results was a headwind of 8 percent for the first six months of the year and is estimated to be 5 to 6 percent for the full year, based upon the current foreign exchange rates.

However, adjusted basic earnings per share were 137.5 pence, compared to 134.9 pence last year.

Profit from operations rose 72.4 percent to 4.44 billion pounds from 2.57 billion pounds.

Revenues for the first half grew 56.9 percent to 11.64 billion pounds from 7.42 billion pounds a year ago. Adjusted revenue was 11.53 billion pounds, down 6.4 percent on a reported basis and up 1.9 percent at constant rates, from last year.

Looking ahead, Nicandro Durante, Chief Executive of British American Tobacco said, "Despite the recent slowdown in the THP category in some markets, including Japan and South Korea, we remain confident of exceeding £1 billion of reported revenue in NGP in 2018 as we expect a range of new launches to re-energise growth in THP in the second half of the year. We anticipate another good year of adjusted earnings growth at constant rates of exchange".