Mondi first-half profit rises as consumer packaging volumes gain

Johannesburg - Mondi [JSE:MNP], manufacturer of packaging for products from coffee beans to industrial chemicals, said first-half profit rose 11% as volumes in its consumer business increased.

Earnings per share excluding one-time items rose to €75 cents a share from €67.8 cents a year earlier, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement on Thursday. Sales declined 4.2$ to €3.3bn.

"We saw strong contributions from consumer packaging, uncoated fine paper and the South Africa division, partially offset by the anticipated price weakness in certain of our packaging paper grades," chief executive officer David Hathorn said in the statement.

Mondi, which has its roots in printing paper and was spun out of Anglo American Plc in 2007, now gets the majority of its revenue from packaging products and is seeking to grow further in the industry.

The company has announced two consumer-packaging acquisitions in the previous two months with the agreement in June to buy 90% of Turkish producer Kalenobel for about €90m and a deal last month for Russia’s ZAO Uralplastic-N.

The company declared an interim dividend of €18.81 cents a share, compared with 14.38 cents a year earlier.

The shares have declined 7.1% this year, valuing the company at R138bn. That compares with a 0.5% fall on the FTSE/JSE Africa Top40 Index.

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