Imperial Tobacco - Half Year Results Interview With CEO and FD

In a video interview with financial broadcaster http://www.cantos.com, Imperial Tobacco Chief Executive Alison Cooper discusses the company's half-year results, revealing an improved second quarter performance. Volumes increased across the key strategic brands - Davidoff, Gauloises, West and JPS - leading to a solid financial performance for the period.

Cooper outlines the strategy to drive sales, focused on the work being done in portfolio management, pricing, customer engagement and innovation.

"We've got a tremendous portfolio, it's in great shape, we've got lots of initiatives planned for it for the second half to build on that momentum.  Innovation is adding to that, we'll build on Glide Tec in the second half, but we've also got some other things we're going to launch, to add to our prospects of our brands and our products."

Looking ahead to the second half of the year, Cooper highlights regulation as one of the focuses for the business.

"It's a tough external environment out there. We're good at managing that environment but also continue to work with regulators to ensure we have reasonable regulation within the tobacco space."

Robert Dyrbus, Finance Director, comments on the company's plans for £400m of capital expenditure and outlines the policy regarding returns to shareholders.

The interview and transcript is available now on http://www.cantos.com/company/Imperial%20Tobacco.