Higher Cigarette Prices Climb Imperial Tobacco

Investors, on the other hand, will be celebrating. The shares rose 26p to £21.43 yesterday, on the hope that this could finally put an end to an ongoing price war in Spain. British American Camel Tobacco also ticked up 33p to £27.87. Analysts applauded Imperial’s stance although Citigroup urged caution: “While we expect the rest of the industry to follow Imperial’s lead on prices, we can’t be certain.

It may be that the rest of the industry wants to wait for a while to see if the government will change the tax system.”

The analysts retained a buy rating on the stock with a target price of £23. In the wider markets, there was a sense that the mood was shifting as brokers turned bullish on European stocks.

Nomura increased its recommendation from neutral to overweight, while Deutsche Bank upgraded its tactical view on European equities to positive.

They expect the global economy to pick up in the fourth quarter, as the impact of the higher oil price and Japan’s tsunami diminish. “Risks around oil have moderated,” they said, “And consensus growth expectations have been revised down sufficiently.”

The blue-chip index pushed past the significant 6,000 mark for the first time since May, although volumes were weak because of the US holiday for Independence Day.

The FTSE 100 closed up 27.78 at 6,017.54, while the mid-cap index ended the day 61.99 higher at 12,102.27.
Low volumes and little activity set traders dreaming of M&A. Yesterday’s rumour suggested either Procter & Gamble or Unilever would buy Reckitt Benckiser for around £50-a-share.

Competition issues over any acquisition would mean the eventual buyer would have to break up Reckitt, and the suggestion was that Colgate Palmolive could mop up any remaining parts. Reckitt shares ticked up 35p to £34.88, while Unilever was 25p higher at £20.37.

There was also talk that Dragon Oil, a £2.7bn oil producer with operations in the Caspian Sea, could be bought out by its biggest shareholder, the Emirates National Oil Company, for 700p-a-share. Rumour had it that China’s state-owned oil company CNOOC might also be interested in the company, driving the shares up 42½ to 550½p.

In the UK, property stocks rose with the market. British Land put on 14 to 629½p on the back of a bullish note from Deutsche Bank. The analysts said they expect the group’s share price to “appreciate considerably” over the next 12 months as the value of its properties increase.

They said the company is well placed to buy distressed property loans from the banks. They added that British Land has a better portfolio than Land Securities – up 14 at 880½p – with less central London offices and more out-of-town retail properties. Deutsche rates British Land a buy with a price target of 820p.

Broker comment also lifted temporary power provider Aggreko 36p to £19.80. Citigroup raised its target price from £17.33 to £23. The analysts said the company’s International Power Projects (IPP) should continue to grow on the back of three drivers – electricity consumption in non-OECD countries, potential in untapped countries, and extensions of existing contracts.

The top blue-chip riser was engineering group John Wood, which continued last week’s rally. It ended the day up 22.73 at 694p. The company was lifted by a mid-week trading update and an upgrade by Goldman Sachs from neutral to buy.

Rival Weir Group ticked up 44p to £21.85 in sympathy.

In corporate news, Essar Energy rose 6.1 to 422.1p after confirming that a meeting to rubberstamp its acquisition of an oil refinery in Cheshire would take place later this month.

On the downside, banks wobbled as fears of a Greek default re-emerged. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that French proposals for the Greek debt rollover could push the country into default.

British banks would suffer little direct impact from a Greek default, but rather a second order effect as a result of their close ties with French and German banks, which have substantial investments in Greece.
Lloyds dropped 0.94 to 49.88p. Barclays lost 2.85 to 262.7p, and HSBC fell 2.1 to 627p.

Royal Bank of Scotland fell 0.58 to 39.11p, edging further away from the 50.2p level that would mean the Government would break-even on its near £15bn investment in the bank.

Cairn Energy was the top faller, losing 13.8 to 404.7p, after negative comments from JP Morgan.
The analysts cut their target price on the stock from 500p to 480p after Cairn dropped the price of the stake in Cairn India that it is selling to Vedanta.

Premier Foods was the biggest riser on the mid-cap index, although it gained only 1.63 to close the day at 18.71p.
Martin Deboo at Investec said: “Given the drubbing it had on Thursday and Friday last week, a dead-cat bounce is to be expected.” He put out a note on Premier with a hold rating and 20p target price.

Reports also emerged yesterday that the chief executive of Birds Eye Iglo, Martin Glenn, had turned down an offer to head up Premier Foods.

Another riser was engineering group Charter International, which added to Friday’s gains, ticking up 12 to 828½p.
The company has turned down a 780p-a-share offer from Melrose. UBS raised its target price on the stock from 550p to 850p.

M&A speculation also helped lift the London Stock Exchange 26p to £10.59. Weekend reports said senior executives at US exchange Nasdaq were meeting in New York to plot a £3.4bn merger with the LSE.

In smaller tech stocks, enterprise software company Kofax ticked up 19 to 464p after Espirito Santo Investment Bank reiterated its buy rating on the stock and boosted its target price to 612p from 551p, ahead of the company’s pre-close update.

New Hampshire’s Irresponsibility on the Smoking Behavior

In a new fiscal adventure, Republicans in Concord this week voted to reduce tobacco taxes by a dime per pack of cigarettes. The thinking: Out-of-state smokers will flock to New Hampshire to load up on Bond cheap smokes and, while they’re here, buy who knows what other products to bring about a retail boomlet.
The politicians, apparently taking the fictional part of Reaganomics for real, say that the tax cut will cause state revenues to grow. Time will tell. For what it’s worth, in a fiscal no te to House Bill 156, where the tax cut originated, the Department of Revenue Administration predicts that state tobacco tax revenue in 2012 could fall by more than $7.5 million if the levy is cut from the current $1.78 per pack to $1.68.
But assume the Republicans are right in their expectations of more revenues. Does that make the tax cut the responsible thing they say it is?
It does not, for a larger reason. The tax cut strategy is to draw smokers from neighboring states that, unlike New Hampshire, are making an effort to discourage tobacco consumption among their people on the grounds that smoking is a public health menace; the New Hampshire strategy would reduce the flow of cigarette tax dollars to those states, which run tobacco-education programs. Here are the facts:
Vermont, which levies a tax of $2.24 per pack, is spending $4.5 million of its own money this year on anti-smoking programs for its citizens.
Massachusetts, which levies a tax of $2.51 per pack, is spending $4.5 million of its own money on anti-smoking programs for its citizens.
Maine, which levies a tax of $2 per pack, is spending $9.9 million of its own money on anti-smoking programs for its citizens.
New Hampshire, which may soon have a tax of $1.68 per pack, spends zero dollars of its own money on anti-smoking programs, though annually 1,700 of its adults die from smoking-related illnesses and many more Granite Staters are exposed to tobacco smoke.
The only money spent in this state to discourage smoking comes from the hated feds: $1 million this year from the Centers for Disease Control to draft anti-smoking policies and messages, plus about $800,000 from the federal stimulus to help fund such things as a telephone-based service for people who want to quit smoking, in addition to $56,815 from last year’s heath reform bill to discourage pregnant women from smoking.
There you have it. New Hampshire, which ranks dead last among all states in trying to reduce smoking among its own citizens, sees a fiscal bounty in robbing other states of the resources that they would use to minimize the danger of the habit among their citizens.

How Big Tobacco’s Trying to Regain Lost Ground in the U.S.

With the Big Apple in the grip of a new anti-smoking law enacted late last month, some Red & White cigarette makers are seeing an opportunity to shore up their top lines — a smokeless opportunity.

Quick to capitalize on the situation, Reynolds American has launched print-ad campaigns in some national newspapers to promote Camel Snus, for those who love tobacco but hate smoke.

In an environment that’s becoming increasingly hostile toward smoking, Reynolds America knows that clever marketing is key to an intelligent, sustainable, and successful business strategy. Other tobacco giants are following suit quickly.

Tobacco in the no-smoke zone
Cigarette makers have long been testing out alternative tobacco products. Today, they’re plunging even deeper into it — perhaps out of necessity, but also because that’s where the most innovation is taking place.

This segment is stacked with competition. British American Tobacco sells similar products, and it says that Swedish and Norwegian adults alone consume more than 240 million cans of smokeless tobacco every year.

Thanks to a large takeover several years back, Altria’s U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company is the world’s leading manufacturer of moist smokeless tobacco. When reporting their first-quarter results, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco and Philip Morris USA said they believed volumes within the smokeless category to have grown by an estimated 7% in the first quarter of 2011.

A company seemingly on the cutting edge of the industry, Star Scientific, markets dissolvable smokeless-tobacco products, the first of their kind on the commercial market.

This is a very competitive industry that may get even more competitive in the near future.

Thank you for not smoking
The market for snus and snuff is already big, with the United States and Scandinavia being the largest regional markets. Swedish Match has estimated that more than 1.5 billion cans are sold annually, with around 30 million to 40 million in the U.S. market. Slap on an average price tag of roughly $5 per can (my own estimates), and you can see how big a business this really is.

In terms of overall share in the U.S. market for snus and snuff, Altria claimed an estimated 56% by volume in 2010, while Reynolds stood at 30.3%.

The market for smokeless tobacco in the United States is forecasted to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 7% between 2010 and 2012. Considered together with the government’s increased emphasis on stricter smoking bans, this segment should continue to grow.
While cigarette volumes have declined in the U.S., moist snuff volumes grew at an average rate of around 6% annually in the past five years. Even better, moist snuff products generally render higher profit margins than cigarettes do. Combined with tougher regulations in their core businesses, this reality explains why more and more tobacco companies are interested on focusing on such smokeless products.
The key lies in how well the companies market these products and generate profits from their sales.
New York’s citywide smoking ban makes smoking illegal in the city’s 1,700 public parks and beaches, along with several plazas. And at the national level, the FDA is continuing to study measures to curb tobacco use. In the past few months, the agency has contemplated limiting or banning menthol and other mint-flavored cigarettes. Such a move would hit companies heavily reliant on menthols, including Lorillard.
Amid stricter regulation and even outright bans on smoking, it makes a lot of sense for the tobacco companies to diversify their product base. Keep an eye on Reynolds by adding it to your watchlist, so you can watch future developments in the industry.

Tobacco Agreement Funds Being Abused

Tobacco companies have been giving Pennsylvania $350 million dollars a year for the past 10 years and will continue to do so for 15 more. But Auditor General Jack Wagner says $1.3 billion has floated away in recent years as lawmakers raided an unprotected pot of money. ”The general assembly during a recession was looking for money in every way, every direction they could find it,” said Wagner.
Wagner says tobacco money should be funding Adultbasic health insurance, and he points to Cigaronne smoking cessation programs that got $50 million eight years ago.
“Have any of you in the media seen an ad in the newspaper radio or TV related to smoking prevention and cessation?,” asked Wagner. “I would challenge you…I haven’t in recent memory…it’s because there’s no more funds devoted to the program.”
Wagner says trailer bills with convoluted language let Governor Rendell and lawmakers raid the fund. And he criticizes Governor Corbett for moving the money to the general fund.
“That is a major change in how those dollars are utilized moving forward,” Wagner said.
But House Republican Spokesman Steve Miskin says the money will still fund health programs -it’ll just be streamlined.
“These are programs that everyone feels is appropriate for state to fund,” he said. “Just putting it all in the general fund…how many budgets should there be?”
Corbett will also use tobacco money to create a liberty loan fund for investment in health-related industries. Wagner has his doubts.
“To take the majority of those dollars away from health purposes and put them in a so-called loan fund is not in the best interest of Pennsylvania,” Wagner said.

Smoking More Dangerous for Diabetics

Cigarette smoking causes many health problems that can even be more serious for people with diabetes enhancing their risks to heart disease and amputation. An article that has appeared in the latest edition of Diabetes Digest, a publication of Diabetic Association of Pakistan warned diabetics to particularly detest from smoking Davidoff as it shrinks the way blood flows through the body and aggravate complications of diabetes.
Heart disease and amputation of leg are the commonest risks for the people with diabetes, warned the expert Dr. Abdus Samad Shera.
To further substantiate the fact, he maintained that smoking damages the blood vessels that makes it harder for the human body to heal ultimately causing infection in legs and feet.
Similarly smoking severely hampers oxygen flow inside the human body and can cause heart attack or stroke.
A diabetic who also smokes is more likely to get nerve damage and kidney disease. Moreover, smokers also contract colds and respiratory infections more easily.
These, he mentioned are besides the fact that smokers in general are more vulnerable to cancers, breathing problems and impotence. Children are more likely to start smoking if their parents smoke, warned the senior health expert.
The good news, he writes, is the fact that no matter how long a person may have smoked his health would start to improve right after he or she quit or cut down a lot on the amount they smoke.
Kicking the habit is hard to do – but worth it and that there are many ways to quit it.

Reynolds launches campaign to push smokeless product

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is attempting to make lemonade out of the outdoor smoking ban that begins Monday in New York City.

The company is launching a major advertising campaign for Camel Snus next week in hopes of getting smokers to try the smokeless product “and reclaim the world’s greatest city.”

Reynolds is the first large U.S. tobacco company to encourage smokers to quit smoking by urging them to switch to a smokeless product, said Bill Godshall, the executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania. The ads do not make any claims of reduced health risks with a potential switch.

The New York City law is considered one of the largest outdoor smoking bans in the country. There also are bans affecting Los Angeles city parks and Chicago parks with playgrounds. The goal in each instance is reducing second-hand smoke.

New York City violators could be subjected to a fine of up to $100 for each instance by the city’s parks department, but police will not enforce the ban.

Two ads will run in the New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday and some New York weeklies, as well as nationally in USA Today and Wall Street Journal. The New York Times does not take tobacco ads, Reynolds spokesman David Howard said.

One ad features the image of a flame holder with the tagline “NYC Smokers: Enjoy freedom without the flame.” The other ad is in the shape of the Empire State Building with the tagline “NYC Smokers: Rise above the ban.” Both ads feature health warnings.

“We thought this was a good opportunity to communicate with adult smokers in New York City, and across the country, to inform them of a smoke-free, spit-free tobacco option they might want to consider switching to,” Howard said.

The campaign also includes point-of-sale advertising, interaction with age-verified and certified adult tobacco consumers, messages on packs and an age-restricted website.

“Camel is transforming to meet demand from adult tobacco consumers, as well as societal changes,” Howard said. “We wanted to raise awareness of another tobacco product that doesn’t produce second-hand smoke.”

Since Reynolds agreed to participate in the landmark 1998 Master Settlement Agreement that restricted its advertising options, the company has tried to walk a fine line in marketing to young adults.

As expected, the Camel Snus campaign drew criticism from anti-tobacco advocates.

“These ads continue Reynolds’ irresponsible marketing of snus as a way for smokers to get their nicotine fix in the growing number of smoke-free places,” said Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“The goal is to discourage smokers from taking the one step that would truly protect their health, which is to quit entirely. Once again, Reynolds is putting its bottom line ahead of public health.

“It’s also deeply offensive Reynolds is using iconic New York City images to market a harmful and addictive products, especially in a city that is a global leader in fighting tobacco use,” Willmore said.

Reynolds has not run cigarette ads in newspapers and consumer magazine in 3½ years.

But it has been aggressive with its Camel Snus advertising, including in magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, People, Sports Illustrated, Time and US Weekly, as well as free and alternative publications.

The New York City campaign also is Reynolds’ latest attempt to connect its brands with specific geographic regions and landmarks.

For example, Reynolds conducted a 10-week “Break free adventure” marketing campaign from November through January that had participants guess which trendy destinations the Camel mascot was visiting before coming home to Winston-Salem. Destinations included Austin, Texas; Brooklyn, N.Y.; New Orleans; Las Vegas; San Francisco; Seattle; and Sturgis, S.D.

Anti-smoking groups and health and government officials protested the campaign for using well-known images of the destinations behind the Camel logo. Reynolds distributed packs bearing the images nationally in December and January.

“The Camel advertising is simultaneously both pragmatic — it is concerned with practical consequence — and yet an auger for the slow but steady change in tobacco-use habits,” said Stephen Pope, an industry analyst and the managing partner of Spotlight Ideas in England.

John Sweeney, the director of the sports-communication program at UNC Chapel Hill, said that the campaign may succeed in attracting new users among smokers.

“It will only get long-term success if it captures a loyal, enthusiastic following,” Sweeney said. “It will only do that if it provides a truly satisfying experience to the current smoker.”

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