British American Tobacco

And something else for the 2025 dividend.....

British American Tobacco
$BATS (-0.24%) signed on Thursday new
share buyback program

British American Tobacco (BATS.L, BTI.JO) has signed an agreement with Merrill Lynch International for a new share buyback program for 2025 to reduce its share capital.

Under the terms of the irrevocable, non-discretionary agreement with the tobacco giant, Merrill Lynch will repurchase shares between January 2, 2025 and February February 12, 2025 up to 223,642,156 shares as announced on Thursday.

The shares will subsequently be canceled.

British American Tobacco $BATS (-0.24%)
confirmed the FY2024 guidance

As expected, growth should pick up again in HY2 and the investments in the US market and strategic inventory sales should pay off.

RRP and Combusibles are expected to improve their sales growth compared to HY1.

The profitability of RRP is also expected to improve.

Debt reduction is also continuing according to plan.

Pictures are from the Investor Day 2024

Combustibles

• Volume share gains in AME and APME
• Value share gains in AME and APME
• Volume share flat in US
• Value share down 30 bps in US
• US volume continues to shrink by around 9%

Risk Reduce Products

Vuse

• Global Value Share maintained >40% in key markets.
• US performance continues to suffer from unregulated products.
• In Louisiana, the first major regulatory successes are driving growth in the regulated market again.

GLO

• HY2 should be significantly better than HY1

VELO

• Continued market leader outside the USA
• Strong momentum continues to drive volume, sales and profit growth
• New USA branding of VELO and Grizzly drives volume share gains +180bps to >6%
• Portfolio expansion in the USA with VELO Plus

A few more quotes from T. Marroco (CEO)

"Our Quality Growth imperative is delivering higher returns on more targeted investments across all three New Categories, and that prioritization and focus is already transforming our business in Europe. We are making further progress increasing profitability across New Categories, and I am particularly pleased with the improvements in Heated Products and Modern Oral."

"We will continue to reward shareholders through strong cash returns, including our progressive dividend and sustainable share buy-back, and we remain committed to returning to our mid-term guidance of 3-5% revenue and mid-single digit adjusted profit from operations growth on an organic constant currency basis by 2026."

BAT $BATS (-0.24%) France confirms that nicotine pouches can help reduce smoking in France

The aim of public health authorities should be to reduce the incidence of smoking and not to create barriers for smokers seeking an effective alternative to tobacco.

Despite criticism from certain health groups and the alarmist tone of some recent news reports, BAT France confirms that these tobacco-free nicotine products can offer French smokers an effective alternative to tobacco products.

In addition to the preventive measures already in place to limit access by young people, BAT France is in favor of stricter regulations prohibiting the sale of these products to minors and regulating the authorized points of sale as well as the maximum nicotine concentration in the pouches and their labeling. One of the aims of these measures is to prevent these products from becoming attractive to minors.

BAT's marketing guidelines require that all advertising material is aimed at adults. In addition, all persons depicted in the communication are adults. The company has also gone beyond the current legal requirements for these products by requiring retailers to verify the age of purchasers at the point of sale.

"We share the government's goal of achieving "the first smoke-free generation by 2032". However, to achieve this goal, it is essential to refocus current strategies to deliver tangible results. The figures are clear: the current method is not working, with the smoking rate stagnating at over 31% in France, health associations and industry need to work together in a meaningful way to find solutions. As far as nicotine pouches are concerned, the solution is not to ban them, but to regulate them by implementing a key measure of the National Tobacco Control Program: "Develop a coherent roadmap for the regulations applicable to all nicotine products such as nicotine pouches".

+++ News: Heated mood around US health insurers +++

The shares of well-known insurance companies such as $UNH (+1.64%) but also those of competitors $ELV (-0.76%)
$HUM (-2.08%) and $CI (+0.21%) have fallen surprisingly this week. Although the losses are limited, the reasons for this are more than just shocking.

As I reported earlier, the CEO of United Healthcare's insurance division was the victim of a targeted assassination. While the police are now investigating at full speed, the perpetrator is currently the target of downright hero worship on social media. The assassin is repeatedly equated with characters from pop culture such as Batman, Robin Hood or John Wick.

Insults against the victim and his family are also liked and shared thousands of times. It is not just the viciousness of the comments that is frightening - but the fact that, as is so often the case in such instances, the platforms simply let them stand.

Insurers' shares are currently falling because there are fears that there could be further murders of insurance employees. The management of the major insurance companies is alarmed and has hastily removed photos and other personal data of their "C-level executives" from their websites.

Commentary and classification: After the failed assassination attempt on Trump, I'm hardly surprised at the kind of people we're dealing with here. The same people who talk about democracy and human rights in every other sentence are the same people who are now calling for the assassination of their ideological opponents once again. Even a good ESG score doesn't help United Health against so much hatred.

From a purely shareholder perspective, this charged sentiment towards the banking and insurance sector is $JPM (+1.21%) is of course a systemic risk when investing. However, these are not necessarily particularly controversial sectors. Retailers $WMT (-2.1%) pharmaceuticals $PFE (+1.49%)
$CVS (+0.57%) consumer goods manufacturers $KVUE (-0.53%)
$BATS (-0.24%) defense companies $LMT (+0.94%) etc. could soon find themselves in the crosshairs.

If you really want to be absolutely sure of being invested in a politically correct way, simply put your money in Northvolt and make a 90% loss. This also ensures that you can "eat the rich" can no longer be meant.

Here is some historical data on $BATS (-0.24%)
$PM (+0.48%)
$MO (+0.78%) and what I expect for 2024.

As BAT only has an HY report, the egg estimate for 2024 is somewhat inaccurate.

I find it interesting that BAT's alternative products have been ignored for years, even though they have been solidly positioned since 2018.

Mind you, this is about volume and not sales in general.

The losses at Altria and BAT in cigarettes are due to the generally declining US market. In the case of Philip Morris, I am even assuming stable volumes with a good probability of growth.

BAT at HP will stagnate if not shrink unless something fundamental changes in HY2. With HILO, if the attack on the premium segment succeeds, the volume should increase again. Phillip Morris is very likely to make substantial gains again.

At BAT, I expect some stagnation in the vapor segment; the big problem here is also the US market, where the unregulated segment continues to eat into market share. Altria can scale NJOY better due to its low market share and should end the year satisfactorily.

In the modern oral segment, Philip Morris and BAT should be particularly convincing. How much Altria ultimately grows depends on how much it can maintain the market share it has gained now that ZYN no longer has supply problems.

Due to the strong volume growth,

Philip Morris to increase RRP's revenue share from 13% in 2018 to >35% in 2024,

BAT from 3.7% to >13%,

Altria (with Copenhagen) 8.9% to 11% (without Copenhagen) <4%.

The main catalysts for volume growth in the future are the IQOS USA launch, VEEV launch in Europe, global ZYN launch, HILO launch, Velo product innovations, action against unregulated vapes, Ploom and SWIC USA launch.

These catalysts should all be in full swing by the end of 2025 and show success in 2026.

British American Tobacco $BATS (-0.24%) launches Glo HILO, its first premium HTP product.

In the HTP category, the share of the premium segment is around 80%, while BAT's share is 2%. HILO is intended to close a large gap in the portfolio and compete directly with IQOS.

So far, Glo has focused primarily on the discount segment, but BAT seems to have realized that the discount segment is not nearly as lucrative as the traditional cigarette market.

HILO will first be launched in Serbia at the end of November.

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- GOLDMAN raises the price target for BRENNTAG from EUR 94 to EUR 95. Buy. $BNR (+0.14%)

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- JPMORGAN upgrades HENKEL from Neutral to Overweight and raises target price from EUR 82 to EUR 100. $HEN (+0.54%)

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- RBC lowers the price target for BNP PARIBAS from EUR 79 to EUR 78. Outperform. $BNP (-0.42%)

- JPMORGAN lowers the price target for ELRINGKLINGER from EUR 6.70 to EUR 6. Neutral. $ELLRY

- JPMORGAN lowers the price target for SYMRISE from EUR 130 to EUR 120. Overweight. $SY1 (-0.34%)

British American Tobacco $BATS (-0.24%) launches e-cigarettes with synthetic nicotine in Korea.

British American Tobacco officially launched its synthetic nicotine-based liquid e-cigarette Nomad Sync 5000 in South Korea on Monday, the first market in the world where the product is available.

The Nomad Sync 5000, which is available in the flavors "Purple" and "Cold", offers up to 5,000 puffs with a liquid volume of 10 milliliters and a nicotine concentration of 0.9 percent. At a price of around 17,000 won (12 US dollars), the product is now available in vape stores nationwide.

BAT Rothmans, the company's Korean subsidiary, attributed the product's Korean debut to the country's regulatory framework.

"South Korea is the only OECD country where synthetic nicotine products are regulated separately from natural nicotine products," said a BAT Rothmans official. "This unique distinction provides a favorable environment for innovation and allows us to responsibly introduce products that meet high industry standards.

Good evening to all

It's been a successful year for me on the whole. Please let me know what you think about my new purchases $CAT (+0.86%)
$BATS (-0.24%) $RHM . I am also thinking about getting into $TGT (-0.34%) to get in.