PRESS RELEASE
07 DECEMBER 2021
Trading update - ahead of closed period commencing 1 January 2022
Jack Bowles, Chief Executive:
“2021 is the pivotal year in our transformation journey to build A Better Tomorrow.
“Benefitting from a continued strong New Category performance, which is now a sizeable contributor to group revenue growth, we are making excellent progress towards our £5bn revenue target by 2025, supported by a clear focus on THP.
“By leveraging our increased scale, New Categories will contribute to profit growth for the first time as their losses start to reduce, a key step on our pathway to profitability by 2025.
“We are building strong, fast growing, global brands of the future, adding another 3.6m consumers of non-combustible products1 in the first nine months of the year, more than in all of 2020.
“Our strong focus on cash flow and deleveraging continues. We recognise the clear value of a share buyback at the current valuation. We also continue to be clear on the need to deliver on our 2021 commitment to reduce leverage to c.3x adjusted net debt2 / adjusted EBITDA3 and expect to reach this by the year end4. This will provide greater capital allocation flexibility as we enter 2022.
“Sustainability is at the core of our transformation with ESG deeply embedded throughout the business. Alongside the acceleration in New Categories, we continue to advance our ESG agenda with stretching metrics, signing up to the UN-backed Race to Zero global campaign.
“The next phase in our journey to create a sustainable Enterprise of the Future is being accelerated by our transformation programme Quest, leveraging our agile organisation and building on the success of our business simplification programme Quantum.
“We are accelerating our transformation with continued strong momentum across New Categories and are confident in delivering our 2021 financial guidance.”
Accelerating our Transformation:
Delivering financial performance:
Technical guidance:
Vuse now global leader in Vapour reaching 34.1% category value share in Top 5 Vapour markets Sept YTD, up 6.9 ppts vs. FY 2020
Continued success of glo Hyper drove THP category volume share of consumables in the Top 9 THP markets up 4.5 ppts vs. FY 2020 to reach 17.7% Sept YTD.
Extending volume share leadership in Modern Oral Top 5 ex US. Category share in Top 5 markets at 36.1% Sept YTD down 0.5 ppts vs. FY 2020 driven by the increased US weighting.
Continued value growth in combustibles, with strong pricing partially offset by geographic mix and the absorption of a c.£260m profit impact6 in Australia and New Zealand
Building on our strong ESG foundations we are creating shared value for all our stakeholders. Recent highlights include:
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T9 THP markets: Japan - CVS-BC, South Korea - CVS, Russia - IMS (BAT+PMI), Italy - Nielsen, Germany - Nielsen, Romania - Nielsen, Ukraine - Nielsen, Poland - Nielsen, Czech - Nielsen.
T5 Vapour markets: US - Marlin, Canada - Scan Data, UK - Nielsen, France - Strator, Germany - Nielsen.
T5 Modern Oral markets: US - Marlin, Sweden - Nielsen, Denmark - Nielsen, Norway - Nielsen, Switzerland - Scan Data excl. SPAR and Top CC.
This announcement contains several non-GAAP measures used by management to monitor the Group’s performance. For the non-GAAP information contained in this announcement, no comparable GAAP or IFRS information is available on a forward-looking basis, as the effect of adjusting items and rates of exchange, which could be significant, may be highly variable and cannot be estimated with reasonable certainty.
The Group’s Management Board regularly reviews the measures used to assess and present the financial performance of the Group and, as relevant, its geographic segments, and believes that these measures provide additional useful information to investors. Certain of our measures are presented based on an adjusted basis and on a constant currency basis. Please refer to the 2020 Annual Report on Form 20‐F for a full description of each measure alongside non-financial KPIs, pages 274 to 284.
One non-GAAP measure which the Group uses and that is contained in this announcement is adjusted diluted earnings per share which is before the impact of adjusting items and is derived from diluted earnings per share. This announcement also contains operating cash conversion, a non-GAAP measure defined as net cash generated from operating activities before the impact of adjusting items and dividends from associates and excluding trade loans to third-parties, pension short fall funding, taxes paid and after net capital expenditure, as a proportion of adjusted profit from operations.
This announcement also contains adjusted net debt and adjusted EBITDA. The Group uses adjusted net debt and adjusted EBITDA to assess its financial capacity. The Management Board believes that these additional measures, which are used internally, are useful to the users of the financial statements in helping them to see how business financing has changed over the year.
Adjusting items, as identified in accordance with the Group’s accounting policies, represent certain items of income and expense which the Group considers distinctive based on their size, nature or incidence. These include significant items in, profit from operations, net finance costs, taxation and the Group’s share of the post‐tax results of associates and joint ventures which individually or, if of a similar type, in aggregate, are relevant to an understanding of the Group’s underlying financial performance. Although the Group does not believe that these measures are a substitute for IFRS measures, the Group does believe such results excluding the impact of adjusting items provide additional useful information to investors regarding the underlying performance of the business on a comparable basis.
The Group’s management reviews a number of our IFRS and non‐GAAP measures for the Group and its geographic segments at constant rates of exchange. This allows comparison of the Group’s results, had they been translated at the previous year’s average rates of exchange. The Group does not adjust for the normal transactional gains and losses in operations that are generated by exchange movements. Although the Group does not believe that these measures are a substitute for IFRS measures, the Group does believe that such results excluding the impact of currency fluctuations year‐on‐year provide additional useful information to investors regarding the operating performance on a local currency basis.
References in this announcement to ‘BAT’, ‘Group’, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ when denoting opinion refer to British American Tobacco p.l.c. (BAT PLC) and when denoting business activity refer to BAT Group operating companies, collectively or individually as the case may be.
This announcement does not constitute an invitation to underwrite, subscribe for, or otherwise acquire or dispose of any BAT PLC shares or other securities. This announcement contains certain forward-looking statements, including “forward-looking” statements made within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as “believe,” “anticipate,” “could,” “may,” “would,” “should,” “intend,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “will,” “expect,” “estimate,” “project,” “positioned,” “strategy,” “outlook”, “target” and similar expressions. These include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, amongst other things, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the economic and business circumstances occurring from time to time in the countries and markets in which the Group operates.
All such forward-looking statements involve estimates and assumptions that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors. It is believed that the expectations reflected in this announcement are reasonable but they may be affected by a wide range of variables that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated.
Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements are uncertainties related to the following: the impact of competition from illicit trade; the impact of adverse domestic or international legislation and regulation; the inability to develop, commercialise and deliver the Group's New Categories strategy; adverse litigation and dispute outcomes and the effect of such outcomes on the Group's financial condition; the impact of significant increases or structural changes in tobacco, nicotine and New Categories related taxes; translational and transactional foreign exchange rate exposure; changes or differences in domestic or international economic or political conditions; the ability to maintain credit ratings and to fund the business under the current capital structure; the impact of serious injury, illness or death in the workplace; adverse decisions by domestic or international regulatory bodies; and changes in the market position, businesses, financial condition, results of operations or prospects of the Group.
Past performance is no guide to future performance and persons needing advice should consult an independent financial adviser. The forward-looking statements reflect knowledge and information available at the date of preparation of this announcement and BAT undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.
No statement in this announcement is intended to be a profit forecast and no statement in this announcement should be interpreted to mean that earnings per share of BAT PLC for the current or future financial years would necessarily match or exceed the historical published earnings per share of BAT PLC.
Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in BAT PLC filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Annual Report on Form 20-F and Current Reports on Form 6-K, which may be obtained free of charge at the SEC’s website, http://www.sec.gov, and the Company’s Annual Reports, which may be obtained free of charge from the British American Tobacco website http://www.bat.com.