Tobacco companies were shaken up today

As I've noted here, for many of us investors, these companies are popular mainly because of their attractive dividend. In that regard, it is mentioned here often. This post will mainly focus on British American Tobacco $BTI $BATS.L, but as there has been more talk lately about hitting the ranks of smokers and trying to keep them healthy, these moves will probably affect all companies of this type over time.

This is about companies going through a transformation to electronic smoking. Whether this is better, I don't want to go into more detail because I'm a die-hard non-smoker, but I'm using this business in receiving nice dividends. 😊

Here's today's report that explains the stock's decline.

The CEO of British American Tobacco ( BTI ), Tadeu Marroco, said: "In line with our vision to 'Build a Smoke-Free World' and combined with the current macroeconomic headwinds impacting the US combustibles industry, we will take an accounting non-cash impairment charge of approximately GBP25 billion in 2023. This accounting adjustment primarily relates to certain of our purchased US combustibles brands as we are now assessing their carrying value and economic life over an estimated 30-year period. Accordingly, we will start to amortise the remaining value of our US fuel brands from January 2024. Building on our strong performance in 2023, it is clear to me that now is the right time to invest further to accelerate our transformation. We are making active investment decisions to strengthen our U.S. business, accelerate the momentum of heated product innovation around the world, and improve the capabilities that support our strategic delivery. These investments will have an impact in 2024, and in addition to continued macroeconomic pressures in the U.S., we now expect revenue growth and adjusted earnings from operations in the low single digits on an organic basis1 at constant rates. By 2026, we expect progressive improvement to 3-5% revenue growth and mid-single digit adjusted operating profit on an organic basis1 at constant rates. We will continue to reward shareholders through our strong cash returns, including our progressive dividend, and once we reach the midpoint of our leverage range, we will evaluate all opportunities to return excess cash to our shareholders. I am confident that the decisions we make today will drive our long-term success and deliver sustainable value for all of our shareholders."

So investors, what's your take on this? 😊 As I mentioned before, I'm a non-smoker, but just this stuff, even though it's not healthy it's always going to be there and maybe it's not exactly moral, but I like to at least make a little bit of money on it, so today I added more shares to my portfolio. 😊