Pound’s dive helps cigarette firm Imperial Brands make a packet

Imperial Brands is the world's second biggest tobacco company
Petr Josek/Reuters

The Brexit vote has been good for Imperial Brands, Britain’s second biggest tobacco company.

The firm behind Winston and Golden Virginia said profits in the first half of the year would be 13%-14% higher because of the fall in sterling since the vote.

The pound is down 17% against the dollar since June.

Imps has also launched a £300 million investment plan to drive growth in its specialist brands.

That initiative leaves guidance on profits for the full year unchanged as it offsets the currency gain.

Imps is regarded as a takeover target, with Japan Tobacco most often cited as a bidder.

Investment bank Jefferies said it sees “an increasing probability of a take-out over the next 12 months”.

British American Tobacco’s recent deal to buy out Reynolds in the US is the spur to the Imps takeover talk.

Imps recently lost a battle with shareholders over a potential £3 million pay rise for chief executive Alison Cooper. Investors were opposed to the deal, noting that Cooper negotiated a pay rise recently.

“The early results of our investment programme are encouraging, with improved market share trends in many of our priority markets,” the company said.

Shares today moved up 36p to 3861p. That leaves Imperial valued at £37 billion

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT