LONDON (Reuters) - British American Tobacco, the second-biggest international tobacco company, reported higher full-year adjusted sales and profit on Thursday, helped by cigarette market share gains and growth in vaping devices.
Excluding the impact of currency fluctuations and the 2017 acquisition of Reynolds American, the maker of Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes reported adjusted 2018 revenue of 25.76 billion pounds, up 3.5 percent.
Its adjusted earnings per share were 296.7 pence, up 11.8 percent on the same basis. Roughly 3 percentage points of the earnings growth was related to a federal tax change in the United States.
Looking ahead, BAT forecast another year of high single figure adjusted constant currency earnings growth.
The company also said its finance director, Ben Stevens, planned to step down. He will be replaced on Aug. 5 by Tadeu Marroco, currently the company's director of group transformation. Before that, Marroco will serve as deputy finance director from March 1, in addition to his current role.
(Reporting by Martinne Geller; Editing by Mark Potter)
