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Imperial Tobacco Group Plc reported a 45 percent drop in first-half profit on costs for buying Altadis SA and said it will sell stock worth 4.9 billion pounds ($10 billion) to current investors to help fund the takeover. Net income dropped to 233 million pounds in the six months through March from 421 million pounds a year earlier, the Bristol, England-based company said today in a statement. That missed the 370 million-pound median estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Imperial agreed to buy Madrid-based Altadis in July of last year, months after unveiling the acquisition of U.S. cigarettes maker Commonwealth Brands. Most of the Spanish company’s sales come from its domestic market and France, adding to its allure for Imperial, which is expanding in new locations because its main U.K. and German markets are shrinking.
“The focus will be to see how Altadis is performing,'’ Rogerio Fujimori, an analyst at Credit Suisse in London, said yesterday. The takeover gave Imperial, Europe’s second-largest cigarettes maker, cigarette brands including Gauloises and the world’s largest manufacturer of cigars.
Davidoff
Investors will have the right to buy one new share for every two held as of May 15, said Imperial, the maker of Lambert & Butler and Davidoff cigarettes. It will sell 338.7 million new shares for 1,475 pence each, 44 percent less than yesterday’s closing price in London trading.
Imperial rose 16 pence, or 0.6 percent, to 2,618 pence in London yesterday. The stock has slipped 3.5 percent in 2008, while larger competitor British American Tobacco Plc, the maker of Pall Mall cigarettes, is little changed. The cigarette maker had said costs related to the Altadis purchase would lop 110 million pounds from first-half profit. The drop in earnings is “all because of this exceptional charge,'’ Fujimori said.
Imperial had said it would sell as much as 5 billion pounds of stock by July to help finance the takeover and retain its investment-grade credit rating. The company has raised its stake in Logista, the Spanish cigarette distributor controlled by Altadis, to about 97 percent following an offer to minority investors this month.

As a result of an agreement between state and federal health ministers, the sale of flavoured cigaretteswill be banned in Australia.
Nicola Roxon the Federal Health Minister met her state counterparts in Melbourne at the Australian Health Minister Conference last week in order to thrash out a range of health issues.
Ms Roxon says the cigarette ban will target tobacco products flavoured either with chocolate or fruit flavours with the intention of enticing children and young people to smoke.
A ban on their importation is being considered and although the sale of the flavoured cigarettes is already banned in some states including NSW and South Australia, lemon, orange, strawberry and apple flavoured cigarettes are currently available alongside regular flavoured cigarettes in several states and territories.
The ministers have also agreed to draw up national regulations and guidelines for the use of solariums in order to help ensure young people do not risk getting skin cancer.
They plan to utilise steps already taken in Victoria to regulate the solarium industry and Ms Roxon says have adopted some national principles that will be put in place.
A $15 million funding boost will also give health workers greater access to specialised mental health training and go towards training 24,000 health workers to enhance their skills when they are dealing in particular with patients with complex mental health problems.

Shopkeepers could be banned from displaying cigarettes under Government plans.
The Department of Health said it was launching a consultation to look at ways to stop children smoking. In a bid to cut the number of smokers and prevent children taking up the habit, ministers have drawn up proposals including a bar on displaying tobacco products and the removal of pub vending machines.
Measures making it easier to sell nicotine replacement gums and patches are also on the table. The proposals follow on the July introduction of the ban on smoking in public places.
According to the Department of Health, the strategy - coupled with wider smokefree legislation - will save hundreds of lives. Someone who starts smoking at 15 is three times more likely to die of cancer due to smoking than someone who starts in their late twenties, the department said.
Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said: "Children who smoke are putting their lives at risk and are more likely to die of cancer than people who start smoking later. It’s vital we get across the message to children smoking is bad. If that means stripping out vending machines or removing cigarettes from behind the counter, I’m willing to do that." According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, the proportion of adults who smoke has dropped by two per cent from 24 to 22 per cent. About 165,000 smokers quit between April and September - an increase of 28 per cent compared with the same period the previous year.
The Government has set a target of reducing the proportion of smokers in England to 21 per cent by 2010. In this year’s Budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling increased the duty on tobacco, adding 11p to the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes and 4p to five cigars. He said the Government was continuing the five per cent reduced rate of VAT on smoking cessation products beyond June 30.
Mark Littlewood, communications director of liberal think tank Progressive Vision, said: "Cigarettes are a product for adults and steps need to be taken to prevent youngsters buying them. But banning the display of cigarettes would be petty, pointless and patronising."