Imperial Tobacco Remains in Line

Source from:  uk.biz.yahoo.com LONDON (ShareCast)  07/25/2008

Imperial Tobacco (LSE: IMT.L - news) said overall performance for the tobacco giant remains in line with expectations, (Advertisement) with cigarette volumes up 45% in the year. The group said cigarette volumes rose to 207bn in the year to September from 143bn last year. In the UK, the annual duty paid cigarette market decreased 6% to 45.4bn, mainly to do with the bans on smoking in public places introduced in 2007. Restrictions in smoking in German are also expected to have contributed around 3 percentage points of the 5% decline in the total annual duty paid cigarette market to 86.6bn cigarettes. In the Rest of Western Europe, it estimates total cigarette market volumes fell by 3% in part due to smoking restrictions in public places. In the USA, it estimates overall cigarette market is returning to a more normal annual volume decline of 3%-4%. "Our operating environment remains challenging but our business fundamentals are strong and with our continued focus on profitability, cost reductions and driving distribution of the enlarged brand and product portfolio, we remain on track for another successful year," said the group. Imperial said it is not one of the parties that had negotiated an early resolution agreement with the Office of Fair Trading in its investigation into the retail pricing of tobacco. "We take compliance with competition law very seriously and reject any suggestion that we have acted in any way contrary to the interests of consumers," said the group. The group also said today it intends to voluntarily delist its American Depositary Receipts from the New York Stock Exchange. "Over the last year our average ADR trading volume has been less than five percent of the total trading volume of our shares and therefore from a cost and administrative perspective it is no longer appropriate to continue with the reporting obligations under the Exchange Act," said finance director Bob Dyrbus. Enditem