Dive Brief:

• British American Tobacco CFO Soraya Benchikh stepped down from her role effective Tuesday, the company said in a Tuesday press release, after she had occupied the seat for just about 15 months.
• The London-based maker of cigarettees, including the Lucky Strike, Camel and Newport brands, appointed its director, digital and information Javed Iqbal to serve as interim CFO, according to the Tuesday release, representing Iqbal’s second stint as interim finance chief. BAT has begun a process to search for a permanent successor, with Benchikh set to remain with the company until Dec. 31 to ensure a smooth transition.
• “I am proud of my role in the significant progress since I joined BAT, as reflected in our recent results,” Benchikh said in a statement, noting “further embedding financial discipline” and putting the company’s “New Categories” product segment “on a path to accretive margins and sustainable profitability have been key contributions to that progress.”

Dive Insight:

Benchikh, who previously logged a 21-year tenure at BAT in roles including as CEO and area director for its South African subsidiary, rejoined the company in May of last year as its finance chief — replacing Iqbal who had been serving in the role on an interim basis since May 2023, according to a company release at the time.

Her departure from the CFO seat comes about a month after the global tobacco company released a financial update for the first six months of the year ended June 30, where it saw revenue and profit in the U.S. market increase for the first time since 2022, according to a July 31 press release. 

The company’s results are due in large part to rising demand for its “New Category” brands, which include vapor products, oral nicotine patches and tobacco heating products. New category revenues for its H1 reached £1.65 billion, a 2.4% increase from the prior year period on a constant currency basis, according to its H1 update. Smokeless products, meanwhile, now represent 18.2% of group revenue, an increase of 70 basis points compared to full-year 2024, according to its half-year update.

In a statement included in the Tuesday press release, CEO Tadeu Marroco reiterated that the company remains “firmly on track” to meet its full-year 2025 guidance, where it expects revenue growth at the top end of its 1%-2% range, according to the July update.

“With the right strategy we intend to continue to deliver on the profitable transformation of BAT, reflected in our stated ambitions for 2026 and beyond,” Marroco said. “We will update on our continued progress in our pre-close trading update in December."

The global tobacco company also reported a 19.1% increase in profit for its operations for the six-month period, which it partly attributed to “the update of the Canadian settlement provision” after the previous year was negatively impacted by associated non-repeating charges, the company said.

Affiliates of BAT, alongside Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco, in March of this year agreed to pay a collective $22.73 billion to settle smoking-related lawsuits in Canada, closing a decades-long saga that first began in 1998, according to The Wall Street Journal. The class-action suits, which represented more than 1 million individuals, claimed cigarette makers should be held accountable for hiding the harmful effects of smoking and for selling a harmful product, the WSJ reported.

Also in March, the Ontario Superior Court sanctioned the court-approved plan for BAT subsidiary Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited (ITCAN), according to a company release. ITCAN filed for creditor protection under the Canadian Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in March 2019, and had been negotiating a possible settlement of outstanding tobacco-related lawsuits under a supervised mediation process. The approved plan resolves all such litigation and “provides a full and comprehensive release to ITCAN,” according to the release.

“After six years of negotiation, today’s decision is an important step that brings ITCAN closer to emerging from CCAA for the benefit of all stakeholders,” CEO Marroco said in the March 7 release. “Like our Canadian subsidiary, we remain committed to working with all parties to implement the Plan, and complete this process.”

BAT declined to comment beyond its press release.