Business Reporter
TOBACCO Sales Limited says plans are at an advanced stage to establish a tobacco grower scheme as the group targets growth in profitability next year.

In its financials for the six months ended April 30, 2012, the group said it had restructured to focus on sustainable growth in the medium to long term.
“In the short term, we are expecting an improved profit performance as the initiatives under implementation make their full impact,” the company said.
However, the company could not give details of how much it was going to pump into the scheme scheduled for the forth-coming tobacco farming season.

The establishment of a tobacco growers scheme is expected to bolster the performance of the group’s performance.
TSL operates Tobacco Sales Floor that has remained significant player in the country tobacco industry, becoming the leading tobacco auction floor.

During the period under review, TSL posted a strong set of interim results showing attributable earnings from continuing operations of US$2,3 million, up 68,6 percent.
The strong performance was driven by a 20 percent increase in capacity at Bak Logistics, four-fold increase in share of profits from Hunyani as well as restructuring benefits, which included discontinuing loss making units.