Member Article

DS Smith drive profits with Swedish acquisition

Maidenhead-based packaging firm DS Smith have boosted profits following the acquisition of SCA Packaging earlier this year.

Pre-tax profits rose 62.5% to £106.1m, and revenue grew 61.6% to £1,671.8m.

In a trading statement, the company stated performance was good across Northern and Western Europe, although the UK not so well.

DS Smith said they were growing their FMCG business with European customers, and shedding some other divisions that were not delivering profits.

Miles Roberts, Group Chief Executive, said: “We are pleased with the strategic, operating and financial progress made in the first half, particularly against a challenging economic backdrop. We have seen underlying performance in line with expectations, whilst the integration of the SCA Packaging business is going very well.

“We continue to focus on strengthening our position across a significantly enlarged geographic footprint having transformed our ability to serve customers on a pan European basis. At the same time we are developing and investing in group-wide capabilities for innovation, design, sales and marketing. With these factors working together, we are starting to see growth in customers across the enlarged business.

“As expected, markets and the paper cycle in particular, remain challenging. However we believe we are well placed to create further significant value for our investors through the robust performance of our corrugated and plastic packaging businesses, where we continue to see good growth prospects, allied to acquisition synergy benefits that are ahead of our initial expectations.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .