20 June 2024 DS SMITH PLC – 2023/24 FULL-YEAR RESULTS ROBUST PERFORMANCE IN A CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT 12 months to 30 April 2024 Continuing operations Revenue Adjusted operating profit(1) Profit before tax Adjusted basic EPS(1) Statutory basic EPS Dividend per share Return on sales (RoS)(2) ROACE(3)
£6,822m £701m £503m 33.1p 28.0p 18.0p 10.3% 10.7%
Change (reported) (17%) (19%) (24%) (23%) (22%) (20bps) (360bps)
Change (constant currency) (16%) (18%) (23%) (22%) (20%) (10bps) (370bps)
See notes to financial table below
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Robust adjusted operating profit of £701m (FY2022/23: £861m), in line with management expectations, against a weak consumer demand environment and high inflation Decline in like for like box volumes of 2%; improving momentum across the year with like for like growth of 2% in Q4 FY2023/24 vs Q4 FY2022/23 Strong customer relationships, innovation and high service levels, together with strong cost management, have partially offset downward pricing pressure Lower free cashflow, reflecting our current capital expenditure programme and a working capital outflow, predominantly driven by commodity prices, has resulted in 2.1x net debt/EBITDA (FY2022/23: 1.3x). Underlying working capital metrics remain consistent with prior years Ongoing capital and operational expenditure programmes to support our customers and improve productivity and environmental efficiency remain on track Further progress towards our 2030 Now and Next goals; o Replaced over 1 billion units of plastic since May 2020, ahead of schedule o Further greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction - 5 per cent in the year (19 per cent compared to 2019) Recommended all-share offer from International Paper to combine the businesses and create a truly international sustainable packaging solutions leader
Miles Roberts, Group Chief Executive, commented: “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 1 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, including OCC. We anticipate this will be reflected in packaging price rises,