CIGARETTES company Imperial Tobacco has delivered record half-year operating profits of £497m after integrating German acquisition Reemtsma.

The figure, which represented a leap of 56 per cent on a year earlier, comes 12 months after Imperial completed the £3bn deal, which added the West and Davidoff brands to its portfolio, which includes Lambert & Butler and Embassy.

Imperial said it had made "significant progress" integrating Reemtsma and added it was on course for annual cost savings of £170m next month.

Chief executive Gareth Davis said the results showed the Bristol firm was now a much stronger company.

He added: "It is now nearly a year since we completed the Reemtsma deal and the rationale for the acquisition is being clearly demonstrated."

The figures, which came in ahead of analysts' expectations, also showed a rise in pre-tax profits to £290m for the six months to March 31, compared with £261m a year earlier.

In the UK, operating profits were down to £177m from £188m as Imperial faced up to a decline in the size of the market.

It said this was due to the recent change in the amount of cigarettes that travellers are allowed to bring back into the country.

Turnover from the UK was down slightly at £359m, although Imperial said it had still increased its share of the domestic market to 43.8 per cent.

Across the group, turnover almost doubled to £1.5bn, helped by the impact of the Reemtsma deal on German and rest of the world sales.

Imperial shareholders will receive an interim dividend of 12p a share, up by a fifth on a year earlier.