Woodford IM's Lamacraft: The 'enviable dependability' of tobacco stocks

Sector enjoyed long-term outperformance

Analysts have been predicting the demise of the tobacco sector for years and they have consistently been wrong, according to Stephen Lamacraft, fund manager at Woodford Investment Management.

It is an industry which faces many threats - some of them old (legislation) and some of them new (e-cigarettes). But it is an industry that is well-placed to continue to deal with these threats. Legislation has been a long-standing issue for the tobacco industry, but one which it has coped with very ably. The latest threat in the UK, and in some parts of Europe, is plain packaging. Woodford names winners and losers for volatile August This has already been in place in Australia since 2012 where it has failed to change consumption trends, but has made illicit trade a bigger problem. ...