Britain's Imperial Tobacco Group today said earnings grew further in the last three months of 2007 along with higher cigarette volumes and share gains in many markets.
The world's fourth-biggest tobacco firm said it was trading in line with its expectations in an update ahead of its annual general meeting later today.
Chief executive Gareth Davis said after a record year for the company in the year to September 2007, positive trading trends continued in its first quarter to December 2007.
Last week, Imperial completed its €12.6 billion takeover of Franco-Spanish cigarette maker Altadis, and made a €910 million bid for the 40 per cent of Spain's Logista that Altadis does not control.
Imperial confirmed its rights issue to pay for Altadis will be no more than £5 billion and will be completed by July 18th, 2008, a year after it announced the deal.
Imperial shares had fallen over its rights issue and delays over an Altadis deal to a low of £21.34 on January 23rd but recovered and were off 0.1 per cent at £23.68 today.
In Britain, where it makes over a third of group profits, its annual cigarette market share was stable at 46.4 per cent, in a market that fell 4 per cent to 47 billion cigarettes in 2007 partly due to public smoking bans implemented in the year.