Annual sales and profits fall for DS Smith

Revenue for the group, which has one of its packaging division sites at Summit Crescent, Smethwick, was down 17 per cent to £6.82 billion.

Pre-tax profit slipped 24 per cent to £503 million.

It was hit by a weak consumer demand environment and high inflation.

There was a two per cent decline in like-for-like box volumes across the year but growth of two per cent in the final quarter.

Chief executive Miles Roberts said: "We are pleased to have delivered a robust performance, despite the challenging environment, driven by our focus on customers, quality, service and innovation together with the benefit from our self-help productivity initiatives. I am also very proud of the continued excellent progress in helping our customers' sustainability challenges and to have achieved our target of one billion units of plastic replaced with fibre-based alternatives 16 months ahead of schedule.

"The positive trends in packaging volumes from the second half of last year have continued into the current financial year and we remain focused on pricing, operational efficiency and tight cost control. The increasing demand is resulting in higher paper and other input costs."

In April DS Smith announced a combination with International Paper through an all-share transaction.

Mr Roberts added: "The combination with International Paper is an attractive opportunity to create a truly international sustainable packaging solutions leader that is well positioned in attractive and growing markets across Europe and North America. We are working collaboratively with International Paper to satisfy the offer conditions and bring about the successful completion of the transaction."