Anti-tobacco legislation, continuous hikes in ‘sin taxes’ and social pressures against smoking appear unable to stop the juggernaut that is British American Tobacco (BAT).
The company – which is linked to brands such as Dunhill, Peter Stuyvesant and Benson & Hedges – had a bigger market capitalisation than internet and media group Naspers on the JSE in 2016, according to BayHill Capital.
Since 2016, BAT’s market cap has grown to over R1.8trn while Naspers – which has a 34% stake in China’s biggest internet company Tencent – has followed with a size of R900bn, said the report.
The BayHill Capital study, meanwhile, also paints an interesting historical picture of which companies’ market caps have grown and shrunk over the years.
For example, mining giant Anglo American was the biggest listed company on the JSE in 2006 with a market cap of just over R571bn. In the last year, Anglo’s market cap was just over R269bn.
And in 1976, explosives and chemicals group AECI was the JSE’s largest company with a market cap of R0.30bn. More recently, AECI now has recorded a market cap over R14bn.
The story that the study then seems to tell is that old habits die hard while businesses centred around human ideas and technology are the future.
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