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BAT earnings jump
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May 2, 2001: 3:14 a.m. ET
World's second-largest cigarette maker posts healthy earnings as sales rise
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LONDON (CNN) - The world's No. 2 cigarette maker British American Tobacco said first-quarter pretax profit more than doubled as sales advanced worldwide.
The maker of brands such as Benson & Hedges, Peter Stuyvesant, Lucky Strike and Dunhill said pretax profit rose to £463 million ($662 million) in the quarter from £223 million last year.
BAT said the earnings benefited from the absence of last year's exceptional charges.
Group volumes grew 1 percent as the company sold 195 billion cigarettes in the quarter, the first increase on a comparable basis in two years, the company said in a statement.
BAT also announced it was in discussions with China about setting up a new joint venture company in the world's most populous nation, which will include the building of a factory in Sichuan province.
"For the full year, we expect to achieve a good increase in both operating profit before exceptional items and adjusted earnings per share, the two measures of our financial progress," said Chairman Martin Broughton.
Adjusted earnings per share rose 9 percent in the quarter to 12.54 pence from 11.49 pence, as operating profit jumped 10 percent to £597 million from £545 million in the previous quarter.
"The pleasing performance has been accompanied by the usual perplexing developments on the regulatory front," said Broughton, in reference to the latest European Union tobacco control directive that bans the export of cigarettes above a certain tar and nicotine level.
BAT, in common with major U.S. and European tobacco companies, has been pushing sales in Asia, eastern Europe and the Third World to offset the effects on sales of Western smoking restrictions and law suits. 
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