Yahoo Finance Cigarette sales cool at Imperial Brands
The amount of cigarettes sold by tobacco giant Imperial Brands looks to have declined once again in the first half of its 2017 financial year.
Guidance for the maker of Gauloises and Winston cigarettes remains on track for the full year but management admitted in a trading update that sales in the first half had been “driven primarily by a deterioration in industry volumes following strong industry volumes last year”.
Imperial said that for the half-year ending in March, the selling price of its cigarettes and the mix of sales from various price points was flat on the prior year.
Imperial Brands share price 1yr
Management announced in November a plan to invest £300m in 2017 in its "growth and specialist brands divisions". The former division includes Davidoff and Lambert & Butler cigarettes, while the latter includes premium cigars and e-cigarettes.
“The early results of our investment programme are encouraging, with improved market share trends in many of our priority markets,” Imperial said.
The investment is predominantly being made in the first half, resulting in lower revenue and profit on a constant currency basis, but the second half is expected to be stronger.
In January Imperial backed down in the face of a shareholder rebellion against plans for major pay hikes for its top bosses.
Imperial had planned an increase in the maximum bonus payable to chief executive Alison Cooper, from three-and-a-half times her base salary to a pot four-and-a-half times its size.
E-cigarettes | Helpful or harmful?
The windfall would have seen the pay packet of the FTSE 100 boss rise from £5.5m last year to a possible £8.5m if she hit all performance targets.
But mounting outrage over the scheme forced the company to scrap plans to put the changes to a shareholder vote at its annual general meeting.
Imperial Brands is not the only major company to face recent agitation about executive pay packages. Eight blue-chip companies suffered serious rebellions last year in which they received less than 75pc backing for their remuneration reports, compared with four companies in 2012.
