28 April 2009

Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s Result as at 31 December 2008


In a meeting today, the Supervisory Board and the Annual General Meeting of Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) approved the accounts for STG and the STG Group. The accounts cover six months as the Group has changed its financial year from 1 July - 30 June to the calendar year.

The STG Group achieved a satisfactory result for the period of DKK 17,423 million before tax compared to DKK 2,370 million in 2007/08. STG’s share of the result after tax amounted to DKK 17,427 million against DKK 1,620 million in 2007/08. For the accounting period, the Group’s net turnover totalled DKK 12.9 billion compared to DKK 27.4 billion for the financial year 2007/08.

The result for the period is significantly affected by non-recurring income related to STG’s sale as at 1 July 2008 of its cigarette activities and certain roll you own and snus activities to British American Tobacco (BAT) thus acquiring the companies House of Prince, J.L. Tiedemanns, and Fiedler & Lundgren at a price of approx. DKK 20 billion.

Simultaneously with the sale of the above companies, STG made an agreement with Assens Tobaksfabrik A/S regarding acquisition of its 50% share of Orlik Tobacco Company A/S so that the latter company is now a 100% STG owned subsidiary. Finally, with effect from 1 July 2008, STG’s parent company, Skandinavisk Holding A/S, acquired BAT’s 32.35% shareholding in STG and, subsequently, the shares of the minority shareholders have been redeemed. As at April 2009, SH has thus obtained 100% ownership of the new STG Group.

The STG Group has a vision of expanding its position as one of the largest manufacturers on the global cigar market and the position as No. 1 within pipe tobacco as well as of obtaining a significant position for the Group’s roll you own products.

The STG Group continues to expand its activities within the global cigar industry and acquired as at 1 January 2009 two cigar factories in Honduras and Nicaragua, respectively. The factories make annually approx. 17 million hand-rolled premium long filler cigars sold primarily under the Group brand CAO to the US market.

STG’s ownership of Dagrofa and Tivoli remains unchanged.

The STG Group’s ordinary operating result for 2009 is expected to be above the level for the calendar year 2008 adjusted for the divested activities.

Appendix (PDF)