London, Feb 23, 2026, 08:02 GMT — Regular session
British American Tobacco slipped in early London hours, with shares ticking down roughly 0.2% to 4,560 pence at 0802 GMT. That’s after closing Friday at 4,569 pence. The tobacco group continued its buyback, but shares shuffled between 4,557 and 4,572 pence.
It’s a minor shift, yet the cadence hasn’t escaped notice. BAT sticks to its playbook—buybacks and dividends, plain and simple. Send cash back, trim shares, and keep earnings per share propped up.
This is crucial at the moment: markets are betting on a smooth move away from cigarettes. If there’s even a whisper that the cash cow is faltering, or that smokeless momentum is losing steam, the spread can blow out fast.
BAT disclosed Monday it purchased 94,469 shares on Feb. 20, paying between 4,481 and 4,596 pence apiece for a volume-weighted average of 4,551.7968 pence. According to the company, the repurchased shares will be cancelled, reducing the total in issue to 2,175,109,609, not counting those in treasury. Treasury now holds 132,976,327 shares.
Buybacks work like this: the company buys back its own shares, cancels them, and trims the total share count. That move can nudge per-share metrics higher, even if topline growth lags.
BAT remains focused on its U.S. nicotine business more than anything happening on City trading floors. Earlier this month, the company announced plans for an AI-powered efficiency push that will mean layoffs. “It will have an impact on the size of the organisation,” interim CFO Javed Iqbal told analysts. CEO Tadeu Marroco, meanwhile, said he was “extremely encouraged by the U.S. performance of Velo” nicotine pouches. BAT points to Velo picking up share from Philip Morris International’s Zyn and Altria’s On!—a critical move as it tries to drive momentum in its “new category” products. Reuters
Regulation and enforcement remain the big risk. Earlier this month, Marroco told Reuters that about 70% of U.S. e-cigarette sales are unregulated devices. He said blocking imports of certain disposable vapes could slash that market by nearly a third. Still, he flagged that existing inventories and supply lines might push any real effect into next year.
Dividends are now front and center for investors. BAT shares go ex-dividend in London on March 26, with March 27 marked as the record date. The first quarterly payout lands May 7. Full schedule here:
