“Challenging” first half for Rexam
Can maker Rexam revealed global sales grew by 1% for the five months to the end of May compared with the same period in 2012.
However, overall operating performance in the first half of the year will be slightly below that of last year.
In 2012 sales from continuing operations for the company were in the region of £4.3 billion.
Rexam chief executive Graham Chipchase (pictured) also revealed plans to sell the healthcare arm of the company to focus just on cans.
Chipchase explained that the summer season traditionally influences Rexam’s results and while North America has continued to “perform strongly”, volumes have been “disappointing” in South America and Western Europe in the last two months.
Overall Rexam is seeing volumes improve in Brazil through June and the second half should benefit from increased cost reductions and certain contractual price/volume arrangements in Europe.
Chipchase said, “Whilst we have accelerated our cost mitigation measures, we now expect full year performance to be modestly lower than previously anticipated.
“It has been a challenging first half, but we have taken assertive action on costs to mitigate the impact on our performance and maintain our capital discipline.
“Although we are still in the midst of our seasonally important summer period, we are managing the business proactively to overcome these challenges, and we continue to expect full year performance to show improvement over 2012, even if progress is likely to be less than previously anticipated.”