12:00 PM EST - Rothmans Inc. : continues to churn out steady profits and shareholder dividends while cigarette sales volumes decline and illegal competition rises. Canada's only publicly traded tobacco company said Friday it earned $99.8 million or $1.46 per diluted share in its "challenging" financial year ended March 31, compared with the prior year's $99.5 million, $1.45 per share. Rothmans, which owns 60 per cent of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. with the other 40 per cent held by the U.S.-based Altria Group, said the subsidiary's net sales for the year rose 1.9 per cent to $618.6 million from $607.2 million. RBH shipped 10.7 billion cigarettes into the domestic market during the year, down 4.4 per cent, as higher sales of so-called price category cigarettes were more than offset by declines in higher-priced brands and rolling tobacco. CEO John Barnett said the 4.4 per cent slackening in RBH volume came against an overall industry volume decline which the company estimates was "moderately lower" than the 8.1 per cent slump experienced in the previous year. Fourth-quarter earnings rose 10 per cent to $18 million or 26 cents per share, compared with $16.4 million or 23 cents per share in the January-March period of last year. RBH sales net of duty and taxes were up 3.2 per cent to $136.8 million from $132.6 million. Rothmans Inc.
shares ROC:CA are trading down seventy cents at $22.64.
