British American Tobacco to Cut Thousands of Jobs
12 Settembre 2019 - 01:44PM
Dow Jones News
By Peter Stiff
LONDON -- British American Tobacco PLC plans to cut thousands of
jobs in a restructuring aimed at boosting the growth of new
products as traditional cigarette volumes decline.
The maker of the Kent, Dunhill and Lucky Strike brands, like
much of the industry, is pushing further into vapor, oral and
tobacco-heating products, which are tempting away smokers. BAT
already sells Vuse e-cigarettes and the Glo heated-tobacco
product.
But these new categories require investment and quicker
decision-making to respond to fast-changing consumer tastes,
growing competition and emerging regulation.
BAT on Thursday said reducing management layers and moving to
fewer, larger business units would make it more agile, eliminate
duplication and generate cost savings that could be reinvested in
new products. In total it said 2,300 roles would be cut, affecting
more than 20% of the senior positions at the company. BAT has over
55,000 employees.
New Chief Executive Jack Bowles, who took the helm 5 months ago,
said the streamlining was necessary to boost growth in new products
and simplify the company's operations. As a result, he said the
company would be in a better position to achieve its goal of
generating GBP5 billion (about $6.16 billion) of revenue from new
categories by the financial year ending 2024. Last year, adjusted
revenue from vapor and heated-tobacco products rose 95% to GBP901
million.
The company, the No. 2 U.S. cigarette maker behind Altria Group
Inc., declined to disclose how much it would save from the
restructuring. It said the process would be substantially complete
by January 2020.
A BAT spokeswoman said the move was unrelated to coming
regulation of vaping products in the U.S.
President Trump said Wednesday the U.S. plans to pull most
vaping products from the market, citing growing concerns about
health hazards and rising use by teenagers. BAT has said it doesn't
sell flavors that mimic children's food or appeal to youth.
Shares in BAT were up 1.5% in morning trading in London.
Write to Peter Stiff at peter.stiff@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 12, 2019 07:29 ET (11:29 GMT)
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