Bulletin: British American Tobacco's Rating Headroom Supported By 2024 Results And 2025 Prospects

This report does not constitute a rating action. LONDON (S&P Global Ratings) Feb. 17, 2025--S&P Global Ratings today said that British American Tobacco PLC's (BAT; BBB+/Stable/A-2) full-year 2024 results, 2025 operating prospects, and our expectation of a consistent financial policy should help the group maintain good headroom under its ratings. BAT?s 2024 operating performance and free operating cash flow (FOCF) were in line with our base case. Despite the company?s lower growth in 2024, we estimate S&P Global Ratings-adjusted EBITDA was about £12 billion-12.5 billion, versus £12.5 billion in our previous base case, with FOCF of £7.5 billion, compared with £7.0 billion in our base case. Credit metrics were also in line with our base case overall, with estimated adjusted

...February 17, 2025 This report does not constitute a rating action. LONDON (S&P Global Ratings) Feb. 17, 2025--S&P Global Ratings today said that British American Tobacco PLC's (BAT; ###+/Stable/A-2) full-year 2024 results, 2025 operating prospects, and our expectation of a consistent financial policy should help the group maintain good headroom under its ratings. BAT's 2024 operating performance and free operating cash flow (FOCF) were in line with our base case. Despite the company's lower growth in 2024, we estimate S&P Global Ratings- adjusted EBITDA was about ú12 billion-12.5 billion, versus ú12.5 billion in our previous base case, with FOCF of ú7.5 billion, compared with ú7.0 billion in our base case. Credit metrics were also in line with our base case overall, with estimated adjusted debt leverage of about 3.0x and funds from operations (FFO) to debt of about 27%. We think the solid FOCF generation and consistent financial policy should enable BAT to deleverage further over the next...

Bulletin