Imperial Brands shares jumped on Tuesday, hitting five-year highs after the tobacco and vaping company announced its final results, revealing strong growth in its new generation products segment.

Cigarette smoking rates are rightly falling across the developed world, which poses a big problem for the major listed manufacturers. However, Imperial Brands has done well to pivot into vaping and other nicotine replacement products that now account for around 8% of revenue and may provide the company a future.

“Imperial Brands’ full-year results showed that cigarettes are continuing to fall out of fashion, with tobacco volumes declining by 4%. But this is a dynamic the group is navigating well, managing to drive revenue and profits in the right direction through a combination of strong pricing and impressive growth in Next Generation Products (NGP) such as vapes and heated tobacco, where sales were up 26.4%,” said Derren Nathan, head of equity research, Hargreaves Lansdown.

“Imperial is by no means the leader in this space, but it is a challenger, and at 8% of the total pie, it’s starting to become more meaningful. But for now, it’s still a loss-making activity.”

Although some may be optimistic about the new products, Imperial Brands’ real attraction is its high shareholder capital returns.

“Our operational delivery coupled with consistently strong cash flow generation has supported enhanced shareholder returns with increases to both our ordinary dividend and share buyback,” said Imperial Brands’ CEO Stefan Bomhard.

“We are on track to deliver five-year capital returns of c. £10bn, representing 67% of our market capitalisation in January 2021 when we launched our strategy.”

The company will return £1.25bn to shareholders through share buybacks in FY25. This is arguably the biggest draw into Imperial Brands.

Imperial Brands’ operating profit was almost flat, but EPS jumped 19% due to buybacks reducing available shares. This trend is set to benefit Imperial Brands shareholders in the years to come.

Halma has bolstered its portfolio of technology companies by acquiring a Paris-based medical device company.

Halma has acquired French medical device manufacturer Lamidey Noury Medical for €50 million in cash. Lamidey Noury, which produces electrosurgical devices for minimally invasive surgery with distribution in over 60 countries, reported unaudited revenue of €13.6 million (£11.4 million) for the year to October 2024, with an EBIT margin exceeding 23%.

Lamidey Noury Medical has developed specialist tools for various surgical applications, including urology and gynaecology. The Paris-based company will operate as a standalone entity within Halma’s Healthcare Sector under its existing management team.

“Lamidey Noury is an exciting acquisition which will bring new minimally invasive surgical product capabilities to our Healthcare Sector,” said Marc Ronchetti, Group Chief Executive of Halma.

“Its advanced products improve patient outcomes and the efficiency of healthcare providers in treating the increasing incidence of urological and gynaecological disease. It is adjacent to our existing presence in diagnosis and biopsy devices for these diseases through Rovers Medical Devices and IZI Medical. We are delighted to welcome Lamidey Noury to Halma and look forward to supporting its development as it continues to scale its business globally.”