Imperial Brands profit slides but revenue up

Imperial Brands, formerly known as Imperial Tobacco, posted a drop in first-half profit although revenue was underpinned by the ITG Brands acquisition.

Pre-tax profit in the six months to the end of March fell to £452m from £1.05bn in the same period a year ago. This was despite growth in revenue to £12.8bn from £12.1bn in the first half of 2015, up 5.6% at actual exchange rates.

Chief executive Alison Cooper said: “This was a strong first half performance, as we continued to deliver against our strategic agenda. Our quality of growth continues to improve and we achieved excellent results from ITG Brands.

“We're focused on maintaining momentum in the second half and remain on track to meet full year expectations and create significant value for our shareholders."

The company declared an interim dividend per share of 47p, up 9.8% from 2015’s 42.8p.

Total tobacco volume was down 3.1% at actual currency to 133.9bn, with tobacco net revenue of £3.4bn, up 15.4% from the first quarter of 2015.

The company said the integration of the US acquisition is largely complete and ITG Brands made a strong contribution to the group results, delivering 20.9% of total reported group tobacco net revenue.

The net contribution of the acquisition to its US performance was tobacco net revenue of £468m and volumes of 8.6bn stick equivalents.

At 0805 BST, Imperial Brands shares were up 0.3% to 3,752.00p.