British American Tobacco Profit Drops Amid Adverse Currency

(RTTNews) - British American Tobacco Plc. (BATS.L, BTI) Thursday said profit for the full year declined from the prior year, hit by adverse currency. The cigarette-maker noted that the underlying performance of its business remains strong.

Richard Burrows, chairman, said, "The Group continued to perform extremely well despite challenging trading conditions. We grew revenue and profit at constant rates of exchange and we increased our market share. Although significant exchange rate movements in many of our key currencies impacted our reported results, the underlying performance of our business remains strong."

Profit to owners of the parent decreased to 3.12 billion pounds from 3.90 billion pounds. Earnings per share was 166.6 pence, compared to 204.6 pence last year.

Pretax profit dropped to 4.85 billion pounds from 5.80 billion pounds reported in the previous year.

Profit from operations declined 17.7 percent to 4.546 billion pounds, reflecting the non-tobacco litigation charge and the impact of exchange rate movements.

Adjusted profit from operations was 5.698 billion pounds, while it totaled 6.077 billion pounds last year.

According to the cigarette-maker, even as adjusted profit from operations declined 7.2 percent, excluding the translational effect of exchange rate movements, adjusted profit from operations was higher by 4.4 percent.

Revenue decreased to 13.97 billion pounds from 15.26 billion pounds due to adverse exchange rate movements. Group revenue was up by 2.8 percent at constant rates of exchange.

In Asia-Pacific, revenue declined to 3.873 billion pounds from 4.20 billion pounds, while Americas generated 2.990 billion pounds, compared to 3.317 billion pounds last year.

Revenue from Western Europe fell to 3.359 billion pounds from 3.635 billion pounds, while EEMEA revenues dropped to 3.749 billion pounds from 4.105 billion pounds.

On a currency-neutral basis, revenues improved in all regions, except Western Europe.

Group cigarette volume was 667 billion, a decline of 1.4 percent against an estimated industry decline of 2.5 percent. Total tobacco volume fell 1.3 percent from last year.

The company noted that its Global Drive Brands had a very strong year with volume growth of 5.8 percent, primarily driven by Dunhill, Rothmans and Pall Mall.

The Board recommended a final dividend of 100.6 pence, taking the 2014 total dividend to 148.1 pence per share, an increase of 4 percent from last year.

BATS.L added 0.87 percent in early trade to 3,763 pence.