[Intl-tobacco] BAT 4th quarter revenue announcement

[Robert Weissman]

BAT's Fourth-Quarter Profit Gains 11% on Tax Refunds - Bloomberg News

 Tuesday, February 25, 2003

 By David Altaner

 London, Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- British American Tobacco Plc, the
world's second-largest cigarette maker, had a fourth-quarter
 profit gain of 11 percent as it cut costs and received tax refunds.

 Net income rose to 299 million pounds ($475 million) from 270 million
pounds in 2001. The company will buy back as much as
 7.5 percent of its shares, or 163 million, spokesman Michael Prideaux
said in an interview.

 The maker of Pall Mall and Lucky Strike is making savings by moving
more of its business online and lowering the cost of
 managing discounting in the U.S. Altria Group Inc., owner of the
world's No. 1 cigarette maker, said fourth-quarter profit fell 18
 percent as it spent to lure smokers from lower-priced brands.

 ``The tax rate in the fourth quarter was lower after the resolution of
outstanding tax charges in the U.S. and the U.K.,' Prideaux
 said in a phone interview.

 London-based BAT said it expects to save 200 million pounds a year in
five years.

 BAT has said it is looking for more acquisitions because it has
finished integrating its 1999 Rothmans International purchase.
 The company is one of five to have requested bid details for Ente
Tabacchi Italiani SpA, the Italian tobacco monopoly.

 Bloomberg calculated fourth-quarter profit by subtracting the
nine-month report from the full year.

 Full-year net income rose 14 percent to 1.15 billion pounds, or 50.1
pence a share, from 1.01 billion pounds, or 43.97p, in 2001.

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