Vaping Is No Longer Big Tobacco’s Savior as Imperial Shares Drop

(Bloomberg) -- The year keeps getting worse for Imperial Brands Plc shares, 2019’s biggest decliner among European personal and household-goods stocks, as a backlash against smoking alternatives batters the tobacco industry.

The stock suffered a blow on Thursday after the company revised down its full-year revenue forecast and earnings expectations, citing a deterioration in the U.S. vaping market. That follows underwhelming results in May, when first-half sales for next-generation products missed analysts’ expectations.

Imperial Brands shares have lost about a third of their value since reaching a 12-month high in November, a few days after the U.K. maker of Blu vaping devices announced additional investment in its next-generation products, which have been touted as a future driver of growth.

“The category remains unprofitable but management expect it to reach breakeven in 2020, which we believe is unlikely,” Morgan Stanley analysts including Sanath Sudarsan wrote in a note. “Imperial provided little comfort on the underlying business model.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Pham in London at lpham14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Beth Mellor at bmellor@bloomberg.net, John Viljoen, Paul Jarvis

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