The board of directors of Philip Morris International today increased the company’s regular quarterly dividend by 10.6 percent to an annualized rate of $3.76 per share.
The new quarterly dividend of $0.94 per share, up from $0.85 per share, is payable on Oct. 11 to stockholders of record as of Sept. 26.
The ex-dividend date is Sept. 24.
A recent survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found the use of e-cigarettes by middle and high school students increasing is in danger of missing the most important point, according to Miguel Martin, president of the electronic cigarette company Logic Technology.
“The recent CDC report does not address the key issue, which is the relative harm of traditional combustion-based cigarettes versus electronic cigarettes,” said Martin.
“Any statements that do not inform adult smokers and society as a whole of the inherent health impact differences between these two products are incomplete and misleading.
“Logic encourages the CDC and other regulatory authorities to accelerate their studies to determine the health impact of electronic cigarettes versus traditional combustion-based cigarettes.”
Turning to the issue of “underage” usage, Martin said Logic did not market to nor intend its products to be sold to underage consumers.
“Logic supports regulation that would eliminate online sales and ensure that sales of electronic cigarettes are age-verified in a manner consistent with traditional cigarettes,” he said.
Cigarette consumption in South Korea was expected to reach a record low during the first half of this year due to the introduction of stricter anti-smoking regulations and heightened health awareness among consumers, according to a story by Park Hyong-ki for The Korea Herald, quoting industry data.
But compared with some other markets, Korea’s is still relatively stable. Last year, cigarette sales amounted to 89.3 billion, down by less than 1 percent from 90 billion the previous year.
And some tobacco consumers might simply be turning to other tobacco products.
According to a piece by Jeyup S. Kwaak published in the Wall Street Journal Blogs, snus started appearing in South Korea earlier this year.
The snus is said to have been imported from Sweden and Denmark.
The boss of a U.K.-based e-cigarette company has been ordered to return a website domain name that previously had been used by an anti-tobacco charity, according to a BBC Online story.
Action on Smoking & Health (Ash) Wales forgot to renew the domain registration for ashwales.co.uk after it developed a new site in April 2011.
Vapouriz’s director, Brett Horth, meanwhile, said he bought the name in good faith to sell e-cigarettes as Alternative Solutions for Health Wales.
But the online dispute resolution body Nominet, which uses independent experts to resolve claims over domain names, called it an “abusive registration.”
Filtrona Filter Products has launched Groove Core, an innovative filter combining “the performance benefits of activated carbon with high-impact, visual brand differentiation.”
Groove Core, which is the latest addition to Filtrona’s Performance Range, is said to provide consumers with the smooth taste experience associated with a carbon filter and a distinctive end appearance created by incorporating an additional colored paper inner wrap and attractive grooved flutes at the mouth end.
In recent years demand for carbon products has spread beyond traditional carbon markets and is now increasing in a number of countries, such as Taiwan, Russia, Turkey, Romania and Ukraine.
“Groove Core is the most advanced activated carbon filter to enter the market,” said Innovations Director Patrick Meredith.
“It combines the benefits of activated carbon and SmoothCore technology (a reduction of vapor phase and semi-volatile components in mainstream smoke) with the higher tar retention associated with Combined Performance Advanced (CPA) technology to deliver enhanced filtration performance. In addition, the integration of a colored inner wrap in the filter end offers consumers visual indicators of performance, which provides cigarette manufacturers with additional brand reinforcement opportunities.”
The construction of the filter is such that the pocket of carbon is positioned toward the tobacco end of the filter while the fluted paper area is placed at the mouth end.
The Groove Core filter is said to be manufactured using a single-pass production process that enables more efficient use of materials, energy and machinery. It also offers cleaner machine running and a lower tip to tip variation in carbon additive weight, and, unlike other specialist filters, it uses standard tow.
Filtrona Filter Products, which next month will change its name to Essentra Filter Products, is a division of Essentra PLC.
Further information is available at www.filtronafilters.com.
Tobacco manufacturers are frequently upbraided simply for defending their interests, even though it would be odd if they didn’t speak up in this way.
And so many in the tobacco industry will welcome today’s intervention by Philip Morris International in which it is seeking to address recent attacks on the company’s efforts to express its views on the proposed EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). Speaking on behalf of the company, which employs 12,500 people in the EU, generates about €14.6 billion in tax revenue and has invested hundreds of millions in reduced-risk product innovation, EU Region President Drago Azinovic said that rather than instigating a serious evaluation of the content and likely impact of the TPD, the discussion tended to focus on PMI’s efforts to make known its views about the proposal.
“The argument that we should remain silent in the face of a proposal that directly concerns us—and on which we have facts and improvement ideas to share—is illogical,” he said. “In fact, it would be irresponsible for us not to inform EU decisionmakers of the impact of a proposal on our business, the hundreds of thousands of employees working in our industry, and the member state governments and taxpayers who will bear the consequences. We have and will continue to express our views proactively and transparently. As the EU itself says, this kind of interaction is ‘constant, legitimate and necessary for the quality of democracy.’”
PMI’s full press note is at http://www.pmi.com/eng/media_center/press_releases/pages/201309090402.aspx.
The European Commission believes that taste panels would be up to the job of fairly determining whether or not tobacco products imparted characterizing flavors, should they be necessary under the proposed new Tobacco Products Directive (TPD).
This was made clear in an answer by the commission to a number of questions by Danish MEP Morten Messerschmidt.
Messerschmidt was seeking to discover what plans there were for such taste panels.
“Does the Commission regard it as an adequate scientific basis to allow a test panel—with differing subjective assessments of taste sensations—[to] decide whether individual products are to be legal or illegal?” he asked.
“Does the Commission consider that a test panel will be able to reliably test the thousands of different tobacco products that are marketed in the EU?
“Finally, how does the Commission envisage that this test panel/these test panels will operate and be composed?”
In its reply, the commission said its proposal would require the adoption of uniform rules on the procedures for determining whether a tobacco product imparts a characterizing flavor. “Independent panels would be used to assist in such decisionmaking, and the precise functioning of such advisory panels would be determined by implementing act,” it said.
“Sensory analysis, involving panels of test subjects, is an established scientific method that applies principles of experimental design and statistical analysis to the use of human senses for the purposes of evaluating consumer products.
“A number of international ISO standards have been developed in this field.
“Sensory analysis has already been used in EU legislation.
“Moreover, there is a wealth of documentation on sensory studies conducted by the tobacco industry to test the influence of flavors on the attractiveness of a product.
“In this respect, the Commission believes that the proposed method is adequate and reliable for the purpose in question.”
Swedish Match said today it was reorganizing its operating structure by integrating its Scandinavia Division and Smoke-free Products Division into a new, streamlined Scandinavia Division.
It gave details, too, of the new group management team (GMT) resulting from this reorganization.
The new division will have full responsibility for the Scandinavian snus business and the global responsibility for the production of smoke-free products at factories in Gothenburg and Kungälv, Sweden, and in Owensboro, Kentucky, USA.
The GMT team will comprise Lars Dahlgren (president and CEO), Marlene Forsell (senior vice president, SVP, and CFO), Joakim Tilly (president Scandinavia Division), Lars Olof Löfman (SVP product supply and marketing, Scandinavia Division), Fredrik Lagercrantz (SVP business control), Richard Flaherty (president, U.S. Division), Fredrik Peyron (SVP legal affairs and general counsel) and Emmett Harrison (SVP corporate communications and sustainability).
“We are creating a more efficient organization—both in terms of number of resources and the way we work,” said Dahlgren. “With a new, fully integrated Scandinavia Division under one management, we are confident that we will reinforce a clear and common agenda and act with more power and speed.”
Restructuring costs, which are currently estimated not to exceed SEK30 million, will be included in third-quarter 2013 figures.
Group leaders in the European Parliament agreed yesterday to delay until Oct. 8 a vote on a new Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) that had been scheduled for Sept. 10 in Strasbourg, according to a story by Dave Keating for the European Voice.
Center-right German and British MEPs pushed for the delay, saying there had not been enough time to digest the position of the environment and health committee, adopted in July. They were supported by the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) group.
MEPs were concerned also about how the vote could affect or be affected by the federal election in Germany scheduled for Sept. 22. Some German MEPs will be absent from next week’s plenary session of parliament because of campaigning duties.
Linda McAvan, a British MEP who is leading the parliament’s work on the issue, opposed the delay, as did German MEP Karl-Heinz Florenz, shadow rapporteur for the European People’s Party (EPP).
The call for a delay followed a barrage of lobbying from both sides of the issue this week as MEPs returned from their summer breaks. Health campaigners are concerned that it is a delaying tactic by the tobacco industry intent on ensuring that the revision of the TPD will not be agreed on by the end of the current parliament and European Commission mandate in 2014.
However, a spokesperson for the EPP said that a delay of a couple of weeks would not create an obstacle to reaching an agreement before the end of the Lithuanian presidency.
Meanwhile, a number of amendments to the proposed TPD had been filed by the deadline of noon on Sept. 4. These amendments are aimed at, among other aspects of the TPD, its impact on menthol and slim cigarettes, tobacco packaging, snus and e-cigarettes.
The e-cigarette company Gamucci is concerned about the way in which the European Commission’s draft Tobacco Products Directive is being handled and was quick to react to news yesterday that the European Parliament had agreed to delay the vote on the directive from Sept. 10 to Oct. 8.
Many MEPs, Gamucci said, had expressed concerns that Linda McAvan, the British MEP in charge of piloting the draft directive through parliament, seemed to be attempting to rush through her own amendments without acknowledging the serious impacts they could have on the fast-growing e-cigarette sector.
McAvan wanted to force all e-cigarette products to be regulated as medicines.
“Her draconian and unjustified proposals would impose significant and—for some—potentially insurmountable barriers on a sector that is increasingly successful in encouraging adult smokers to switch away from traditional combustible tobacco products,” Gamucci said in a press note.
“There are already an estimated 12 million electronic cigarette consumers across Europe who fear that such regulation could drive them back to smoking traditional tobacco products.”
Meanwhile, Gamucci’s Jacqueline Burrows made the point that very many health professionals believed the evidence was clear (1).
“Electronic cigarettes provide smokers with the positive benefits and pleasures of nicotine without the risks associated with traditional burning tobacco and its smoke,” she said. (2) (3) (4) (5) (6).
“Many MEPs who have taken the time to study the facts and listen to those who have already made the switch recognize that it is the pharmaceutical companies and existing tobacco companies which would be the main beneficiaries of medicinal regulation of electronic cigarettes.” (7) (8).
Burrows added that this was the time to work together and agree on a sensible, proportionate, regulatory framework. It defied common sense that electronic cigarettes should be subjected to a more draconian regulation than that applying to existing tobacco products.