Category: Financial

  • New CFO for Swedish Match

    New CFO for Swedish Match

    Swedish Match said yesterday that Tom Hayes was to become its new CFO.

    This follows the resignation, for family reasons, of Marlene Forsell, who is due to leave her position on March 9.

    CEO Lars Dahlgren said Forsell had joined Swedish Match in 2004 and had become CFO in 2013.

    “Throughout her successful career at Swedish Match she has made many important contributions to our company,” he said. “We are very sorry that Marlene has decided to resign.”

    But Dahlgren said the company was fortunate to have a strong replacement in Hayes who had been with Swedish Match since 2006.

    “He already has experience in the CFO role at Swedish Match as he was acting CFO for nine months during Marlene’s parental leave in 2013 and 2014,” he said.

    Hayes is currently vice president business control and CFO at Swedish Match’s US Division.

  • Dividends declared

    Dividends declared

    The board of directors of Philip Morris International yesterday declared a regular quarterly dividend of $1.07 per common share, payable on January 11 to shareholders of record as of December 21.

    The ex-dividend date is December 20.

    Meanwhile, the Altria Group said on Wednesday that its board of directors had declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.66 per common share, payable on January 10, to shareholders of record as of December 21.

    The ex-dividend date is December 20.

  • Export award for BAT Korea

    Export award for BAT Korea

    British America Tobacco Korea’s plant in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, has received an award for exporting products to the value of more than $200 million, according to a story in The Korea Herald quoting the company.

    The Sacheon Factory was said to have exported products worth $208 million to 15 countries between July 2016 and June 2017.

    The $200 million mark was reached one year after the plant had exported products valued at $100 million because of the installation of additional capacity at the factory in June.

    The factory currently has a capacity of 40 billion pieces a year, comprising 450 brands of combustible cigarettes and heat-not-burn (HNB) Neostiks for use with BAT’s HNB device Glo. The Sacheon factory produces all the Neostiks sold in Korea and Japan.

    For reaching the $200-million-mark, BAT received on Tuesday the Export Tower Award at the 54th Annual Trade Day ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and supervised by the Korea International Trade Association.

    “BAT Korea Sacheon Factory’s exports doubling within just a year goes on to show that the high quality of ‘Made in Korea’ products is being recognized throughout the globe,” said Matthieu Juery, CEO of BAT Korea.

    The Sacheon Factory is said to have maintained since 2003 top rankings among the BAT Group’s 44 factories worldwide in respect of the production quality index and the product quality index.

  • Cigarette tax rise predicted

    Cigarette tax rise predicted

    Japan’s government plans to increase tobacco tax by ¥3 per cigarette, according to a story in The Jiji Press citing ‘informed sources’.

    Currently, the tax per cigarette stands at about ¥12.2. The tobacco tax was last raised in October 2010, by ¥3.5 per cigarette.

    To avoid a steep plunge in tax revenue due to the potential decline in consumption that might occur after a tax rise, the tax will be raised in stages of ¥1 per cigarette over four years, starting in fiscal 2018.

    The government plans also to raise taxes on heat-not-burn tobacco products, which have become popular recently. Details about the increase in taxes on these products, which currently attract a lower rate of tax than do combustible cigarettes, will be discussed later.

    The tobacco tax increase will be included in the government’s fiscal 2018 tax-reform package, which is expected to be published on December 14.

  • Double or quit

    Double or quit

    The Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health has recommended that a tax hike should be used to push the price of cigarettes from about HK$57 a pack to HK$100 a pack, according to a story by Riley Chan for the Hong Kong Standard.

    The Council, described as a policy advisory body, called for the hike after it saw the results of a survey it commissioned from the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong (HKU): The Tobacco Control Policy-related Survey 2017.

    The survey researchers interviewed by telephone 2,002 people aged 15 and older from April to October this year.

    They were said to have found that more than 80 percent, 5.7 percent of them smokers, supported an increase in tobacco tax next year.

    More than 70 percent suggested that the tax should be increased annually.

    Of the 298 smokers, 47.3 percent agreed that an increase in the retail price would encourage them to quit smoking.

    The average increase in price suggested would take the price of a pack of cigarettes to HK$100.

    Currently, leading brand cigarettes are sold for HK$57 a pack, where tax accounts for 67 percent, or HK$38, of the price.

    To drive the price of cigarettes higher, the Council called on the government to double the tax, which is lower than the 75 percent recommended by the World Health Organization.

    Lam Tai-hing, chair professor of community medicine at HKU, said the current price was much lower than that in other developed regions.

    In Singapore, a pack of cigarettes was priced at the equivalent of HK$75, while in Britain and Australia, prices were HK$94 and HK$154 respectively.

    “Looking at the retail price in other countries and the tobacco tax increase in recent years, we don’t think doubling the tax is too much to ask for,” Lam said.

  • Russia goes for DIY tobacco

    Russia goes for DIY tobacco

    Russia’s economy started growing this year after two years of recession, but many people aren’t feeling any richer yet and this is something that is reflected in the cigarettes they are smoking, according to a qz.com story.

    Apparently, some smokers have turned to smoking cigarettes made with home-grown tobacco; so that while official figures indicate that smoking in Russia fell by about 20 percent between 2013 and 2016, the reality is probably somewhat different.

    Russians’ real disposable income fell for the fourth month in a row in October – a 1.3 percent drop from that of the same month of last year.

    In September, real wages were 13 percent lower than they were in 2014, when, according to Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, the recession started.

    Meanwhile, tobacco tax hikes have caused cigarette prices to nearly double since 2013 – a challenge to one of Europe’s heaviest-smoking populations.

    Hence the interest in growing tobacco at home.

    “Several governors have told me that last year people started planting tobacco in their dachas and gardens,” Sergei Ryabukhin, the head of the Russian Senate’s budget and finance committee said last week.

    “When you go to a region, you realize with horror that people have turned to growing tobacco or shag. According to official statistics [tobacco production] has fallen 21 percent and people are smoking less. But in reality it’s not like that.”

  • UK wholesaler goes under

    UK wholesaler goes under

    Imperial Brands said yesterday that it was disappointed that Palmer & Harvey (P&H), the UK’s biggest tobacco wholesaler, had called in the administrators.

    But in notes posted on their websites, Imperial and Japan Tobacco Inc. each said that the P&H’s demise would not ‘significantly’ affect the delivery of their products because they had contingency plans in place.

    ‘In October 2017 Palmer & Harvey (P&H) entered a period of exclusivity with the Carlyle Group with the intention of securing significant capital investment,’ Imperial said in its note. ‘We are disappointed to learn that despite Imperial’s on-going support, the directors of P&H have today [Tuesday] appointed administrators.

    ‘P&H has been a long-standing trading partner in the UK and for several months Imperial has been working to find a solution that provides the business, and its employees, with a sustainable long-term future. ‘Imperial was prepared to explore further alternatives and is disappointed that the other parties have been unable to pursue these to a successful conclusion.

    ‘We currently estimate that P&H’s decision to enter administration may have a one-off impact on Group operating profit in our current financial year by up to £160 million, the majority of which relates to excise duty which is non-recoverable.

    ‘We do not anticipate any significant disruption to our UK operations. We have well-prepared contingency plans which will ensure that the on-going supply to Imperial’s retail customers remains unaffected.’

    Meanwhile, JT said that P&H delivered about 25 percent of Japan Tobacco International’s volume in the UK but that, because of a contingency plan already in place it did not expect any significant interruption in the supply of its products.

    ‘The JT Group’s maximum credit exposure as of November 29, 2017 is £148 million,’ JT said. ‘It is not yet possible to determine the financial impacts at this time, as we need to allow the administration process to progress.’

  • Tobacco shown the door

    Tobacco shown the door

    BNP Paribas has said that it will cease transactions and investments related to the tobacco sector and progressively disengage from relationships with tobacco clients, according to a Bloomberg News story relayed by the TMA.

    The France-based banking and financial services group’s clients are said to include British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Philip Morris International.

    Laurence Pessez, global head of corporate social responsibility at BNP Paribas, said the decision to disengage from the tobacco sector was effective from now, though withdrawal would be progressive to the extent that the bank would honor its commitments to its clients.

    BNP said in a statement that its new position applied to firms that earned their revenue mainly from tobacco, including manufacturers, wholesalers and traders.

    The move was reportedly prompted by a recent decision by the UN Global Compact to exclude tobacco firms from its initiative for a responsible economy.

    Pessez said BNP Paribas had “a certain number of sector-specific policies that govern our interventions in industries considered sensitive, such as defense, nuclear energy, palm oil and agriculture”.

  • Minimum pricing mooted

    Minimum pricing mooted

    Setting a minimum price for tobacco products could be used as part of a campaign to reduce the number of smokers in Scotland, according to a BBC Online story.

    The proposal was made after the Scottish government announced it would introduce minimum alcohol pricing from next May.

    Public health experts in Scotland are suggesting, too, that raising the price of tobacco products and reducing their availability, in part by incentivising retailers not to sell them, might help tackle health inequalities.

    NHS [National Health Service] Health Scotland and the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy (SCPHRP) at the University of Edinburgh have put forward these and other ideas as part of a new national tobacco strategy.

    They want to see also mass media campaigns to encourage smokers to stop, and to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke.

    They recommend that effective policy actions should focus on reducing health inequalities.

    Twenty-one percent of adults in Scotland smoke, down from 28 percent in 2003.

    However, adult smoking levels have been static since 2013.

    And rates are still highest in the financially poorer areas of the country, with 35 percent of adults in the least well-off areas smoking compared to 10 percent in the most well-off areas.

    Dr. Garth Reid, principal public health adviser at NHS Health Scotland and one of the study’s authors, said Scotland’s health was improving but that the gap between the health of the best and least well-off was widening.

    NHS Scotland claims that smoking causes more than 10,000 deaths a year.

  • Local studies needed

    Local studies needed

    Indonesia needs more studies conducted by local researchers to reveal the impact of tobacco consumption on the nation’s health and health care costs, according to a story in The Jakarta Post citing an Antara News Agency report.

    “We have often talked about the impact of tobacco use in the country, but we are just quoting information and data on the matter from reports by researchers in foreign countries,” said the Health Minister, Nila Moeloek.

    Now that the National Health Insurance (JKN) program had been implemented in Indonesia, it was easier for researchers to conduct studies into the impact of tobacco consumption on public health and the healthcare costs involved in treating tobacco-related diseases, she said.

    The Healthcare and Social Security Agency data had shown that 20-25 percent of JKN expenditure went to the treatment of non-communicable diseases related to tobacco consumption, such as cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer.

    Nila said a study conducted by the Russian government found that the high incidence of tuberculosis in that country was related to alcohol and tobacco consumption.

    “It’s probable that our researchers can conduct such a study given the high number of smokers in Indonesia,” she added.