Category: News This Week

The Philippines’ Bureau of Customs last week seized a shipment of counterfeit cigarettes from China worth PHP18 million, according to a story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The fake Marlboro cigarettes, which had been declared as mono-acetate filter rods, arrived at the Manila International Container Port on Tuesday.

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon, who was reported to have inspected the shipment together with the deputy U.K. ambassador to the Philippines, Trevor Lewis, said the cigarettes had been subjected to immediate seizure.

Lewis was quoted as saying that the risk to people’s health posed by their smoking fake cigarettes was greater [than that posed by smoking genuine cigarettes] because the counterfeits didn’t have proper filters.

“In reality, with the proper brand you have proper filters to prevent, offset some of the bad health effects,” he said.

“With these ones, they don’t have proper filters.

“They were produced as cheaply and as hastily as possible …”

Lewis said he was “pretty certain” that the fake cigarettes were destined for the U.K.

Had the shipment reached the U.K. and been sold there, he added, the British government would have lost $4 million.

Imperial Tobacco is due to publish its preliminary results for the year to the end of September on Nov. 5.

A live webcast and the slides of the presentation to analysts and investors will be available at http://www.imperial-tobacco.com from 8:30 a.m. U.K. time.

The presentation transcript will be available on the same site from 10 a.m.

Andrew Stanikowski will step down in March as CEO of International Tobacco Machinery Poland after leading the company for 22 years. He will continue in a nonexecutive role.

Stanikowski was instrumental in the creation of ITM Poland, which helped turn the ITM Group into a respected OEM and a leading innovator. Leszek Sikora will take over as CEO.

Sikora started in ITM Poland 1992 as an engineer. He occupied several positions before becoming a member of the ITM Poland Board in 2007. He is known in the industry as the father of many successful machines and projects.

“After 22 years of leading ITM Poland and making our company play a key role in ITM’s success, I have decided that the time has come to pass on my executive responsibility to the next generation,” said Stanikowski.

Arend van der Sluis, chairman of the ITM Group, expressed his gratitude to Stanikowski. “Andrew has truly become an ITM family member. In the past years, he has matured a nice group of people around him to make sure our company is ready for the next decades, as inevitably the time would come where one needs to think of life after work.

“When Andrew realized that this capable team was properly taking care of the heritage that he has co-created, he indicated that he wanted to pass on his responsibility to the next generation of people. We are very happy to keep Andrew close to us and to the industry in his advisory role.

“ITM Group is looking at a very bright future with many more new challenges that will see more great innovative solutions like Solaris, Isis, Delphini and our latest Saturn FIFO buffer. We are fully confident that Leszek and his team will to continue to build and develop our great company.”

New York City Council members have voted to raise the minimum age at which people can buy tobacco products from 18 to 21, according to a story by Cheryl K. Chumley for the Washington Times.

One hundred and eighty days after the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, signs the measure, which he is expected to do, the ban will go into effect.

At that time, those under 21 years of age will not be able to buy tobacco products or electronic cigarettes.

The measure will ban, too, discounts on tobacco products.

And it will increase the punishments that can be imposed on those found to be trying to evade tobacco-related taxes.

Chumley pointed out that while New York City isn’t the only city in the U.S. to ban sales of tobacco products to those under 21, it is the largest. Needham, Massachusetts, raised the minimum age to 21 eight years ago, and several other states and jurisdictions have set the minimum age at 19.

Imperial Tobacco’s Czech operations have supported a competition to find the best sniffer dogs used by customs officials to detect illicit tobacco.

The contest, staged at the customs training centre in north Bohemia, involved dogs from Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and Slovenia, as well as Czech dogs.

The aim of the competition was to recognize the skills of the sniffer dogs and their handlers in the ongoing fight against the illicit trade.

“Around eight out of 10 seizures of illegal tobacco result from using trained sniffer dogs,” said Josef Dušánek, head of the dog section for Czech customs.

“So we’re grateful for the support of Imperial Tobacco in helping us to stage this international competition where dogs and handlers can pit their skills against each other.”

Photo: Kamil Provaznik, Imperial’s finance and CLA manager for Czech Republic and Slovakia (second left), meets with Josef Dušánek, with Czech customs dog handlers and their animals in attendance.

Universal Corporation is due to webcast a conference call from 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Nov. 5 following the release of its second-quarter results after market close on that date.

The conference call, which will be available on a listen-only basis at www.universalcorp.com, will be hosted by Candace C. Formacek, vice president and treasurer.

A replay of the conference call will be available at the same address until Feb. 5, and a taped replay will also be available from 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 5 until Nov. 19 at (855) 859-2056. The telephone replay identification number is 92538183.

NDC Infrared Engineering has appointed Terry Patterson as vice president of global customer care for its sensors, systems and metals divisions. Patterson’s responsibilities involve managing NDC’s customer care division and for developing its various support products that are designed to maximize the return on investment for its customers.

Patterson has 25 years of experience in service management in higher education and companies such as NCR, AT&T, Northrop Grumman, Art Center College of Design and Rapiscan Systems. He holds both a Bachelor of Science and an MBA from the University of Redlands in California, USA.

Cigarette paper manufacturer BMJ has a new logo and slogan. The logo comprises a blue square and red letter type that appears to peel away in the left bottom corner. The square is meant to represent BMJ’s confidence and pursuit of perfection, according to BMJ CEO Omar Rahmanadi, while the peel effect symbolizes the company’s passion for unveiling new solutions. BMJ’s new slogan, “Eureka Everyday!” summarizes BMJ’s commitment to innovation. Alongside the new logo, BMJ will also be unveiling a new corporate website, www.bmjpaperpack.com.

Japan Tobacco Inc.’s domestic cigarette sales volume during the six months from April to September, at 59.6 billion, was up by 0.1 percent on that of April–September 2012.

In announcing this morning its consolidated results, JT said that a strong performance by Mevius had contributed to its domestic market share reaching 60.6 percent for April–September, up from 59.5 percent for April–September 2012.

The share increase had been led by a number of new product and sales promotion initiatives, including the introduction of value-added products into the growing menthol segment, it said.

At the same time, the company’s core revenue from domestic cigarette sales grew by 0.2 percent to ¥335.8 billion, but its adjusted EBITDA fell by 0.6 percent to ¥153.3 billion.

Meanwhile, Japan Tobacco International’s total cigarette and cigarette-equivalent shipment volume during the six months from January to June, at 201.6 billion, was down by 5.1 percent on that of January–June 2012.

Within that total, GFB (global flagship brand) shipment volume was down by 2.3 percent to 127.9 billion.

The fall in total volume was put down to continuing industry contraction and trade inventory adjustments in the first quarter.

“Year-on-year market share continued to grow in most key markets,” JT reported. “In Russia, we increased GFB share of market and, as a result, total share of value.”

GFB shipment volume declined as growth in the Caucasus markets, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Russia and other CIS markets could not fully offset industry contraction in other markets, particularly those of Europe.

JTI’s core revenue and adjusted EBITDA in U.S. dollars grew by 2.0 percent and 4.9 percent respectively as a price/mix improvement more than compensated for the volume decline and unfavorable currency movements. At constant rates of exchange, core revenue and adjusted EBITDA grew by 4.1 percent and 7.0 percent, respectively.

Including the results of its other businesses, JT’s April–September revenue increased by 9.6 percent to ¥1,159.1 billion and its adjusted EBITDA increased by 13.0 percent to ¥371.7.

Operating profit was up by 30.8 percent to ¥347.4 billion and the profit attributable to the owners of the parent increased by 40.5 percent to ¥237.1 billion.

JT’s president and CEO, Mitsuomi Koizumi, who yesterday announced that JT was slashing its domestic workforce by about 18 percent, shutting factories and cutting back on certain operations so as to protect profits, said today, in part, that the company was confident it would continue to deliver double-digit full-year earnings growth on a constant currency basis. “The overall results of the first two quarters indicate that we are on track to achieve our full-year targets,” he said.

JTI reported separately that its total cigarette shipment during January to September, at 311.2 billion, was down by 5.1 percent on that of January–September 2012, with GFB volume down by 2.1 percent to 198.2 billion.

Tobacconists in France are claiming that e-cigarettes fall under the tobacco sale monopoly law and should therefore be sold exclusively by them, according to a EurActiv story.

“We want that the sale of the electronic cigarette is done exclusively within the framework of the network of tobacconists,” said Jean-Luc Renaud, secretary general of the confederation of tobacconists.

At present, e-cigarettes are sold in a variety of shops, but a tobacconist is said to have lodged an “unfair competition” complaint against a supplier on the grounds that the product can be considered to be a derivative of tobacco.

The EurActiv story said there was a legal vacuum on the matter in France, even though a law of 1983 stated that cigarettes and smoking products “fall under the monopoly distribution of tobacconists,” “even if they do not contain tobacco.”

Meanwhile, another legal controversy is enveloping e-cigarettes, and that has to do with advertising. Tobacco advertising is prohibited in France under the Evin law, but this does not seem to cover e-cigarettes.

French Health Minister Marisol Touraine has said several times that advertising for e-cigarettes would be prohibited, but she has not tabled legislation.