IMBBY Imperial Brands PLC (QX)

   By Elena Vardon 
 

Imperial Brands PLC on Tuesday said it is on track to meet its full-year guidance as it posted a rise in pretax profit and stable revenue for the first half of fiscal 2023.

The FTSE 100 tobacco group--which houses Davidoff, Gauloises and JPS among its brands--made a pretax profit of 1.44 billion pounds ($1.81 billion) for the six months ended March 31, up from GBP1.26 billion a year ago.

Revenue rose slightly to GBP15.41 billion from GBP15.36 billion, with new product and market launches of next generation products boosting sales while strong pricing in tobacco helped mitigate volume declines.

Operating profit--one of the company's preferred metrics--increased 28% to GBP1.53 billion from GBP1.20 billion the prior year.

The board declared a dividend of 43.18 pence a share, up from 42.54 pence a year earlier.

"We remain on track to deliver the acceleration in adjusted operating profit growth in the second half in line with our guidance and expectations," Chief Executive Stefan Bomhard said.

"We expect the year-on-year effect of consumer buying patterns to normalise in the second half as we annualize the prior year Covid-related impact," he added.

Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 16, 2023 02:44 ET (06:44 GMT)

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