British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tadeu Marroco: Yes. I just want to compliment about — I think that we have — what we saw in ’22 is a very resilient combustible business to start with. We referred to 1.2% FMC THP worldwide decline. If you see combustible loan, it’s around 2%. And if you see emerging market was pretty much flattish. We saw volume growth in place like Brazil, which we are very strong as well as Bangladesh, Malaysia, Vietnam. So a lot of markets and we decided even in places like Italy, Spain and Europe. So we had a number of markets where with all the macroeconomic headwinds, inflation, we still saw volume growth. In terms of our performance in market share, we are not really concerned about that. This is very specific for some specific markets for Brazil, for example, we had some price schemes there and we prioritize some value.

And we had in Turkey because of this macroeconomic situation, we saw a lot of increase illicit trade, and we are more exposed because we are strong on the low end of the market. So we lost some share there and has a big weight. So — but it’s not something — it’s very specific for some countries, but I think the key message is that we are seeing a very resilient business across the world.

Rey Wium: Excellent. And then just a question for you about the interest guidance of £1.9 billion. It looks a bit high to me. So I just want to know — I mean, it sort of went up of my calculations like an average coupon rate of about 5%. Now is it an issue of that you probably expect your free cash flow to be a bit lower this year? Because, I mean, I just want to tie the two ends together here.

Tadeu Marroco: Okay. No, it’s not that. It’s — well, we had our starting point will be a £1.6 billion in terms of interest cost in 2022. And then what we are seeing, and that’s why I referred to 18% in terms of our exposure for 2023. We have some refinance to do it. So we used to refinance at 4%, 4.5%, and this is higher than that. And I don’t think that is as high as we saw in October because the market has come down a bit more this year, but can be much higher than the average cost of capital. And we also have needs in terms of working capital, CP markets, bilateral, and those rates were very, very minimal back in early stage of 2022 and now went up substantially. So that’s where you see this — when you see the gap between where it was, where is now plus the commitments that we have in terms of other finance costs and in terms of maturities that adds up to something close to 18% of our needs, you come to this number of 1.9%.

And it’s important to flag that because we will be seeing this annualized impact in 2023. So it’s a one-off that we see in ’23, and then we create a new base moving forward.

Jack Bowles: And in terms of cash conversion, I mean, you saw that we had 100% in average in the last three years, and we have a number of 95% and higher. So I mean we are very dedicated to that. And after that, the free cash after dividend. What you see is that last year it was £2.1 billion last year, 2021. 2022 was £2.7 billion, and we continue to make a lot of efforts. Also, you saw that we had the program of Quantum that was £1 billion originally three years ago. We delivered £1.9 billion — and we just said that we’re going to do another £1 billion in the few years to come. So I think that it’s — we’re getting to a position where financials make a lot of sense where our business is making a lot of sense where we’re accelerating our transformation.

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