DS Smith chief executive Miles Roberts is to retire from his role by end of November 2025.
In a statement issued by the company, it said that he would formally begin his notice period on 1 December 2024.
This is with the intention of giving the company time to find a successor.
He said: “I have enjoyed every moment of my career with DS Smith and it has been a pleasure to work with my colleagues and the Company’s customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
“After 13 years this seemed like the appropriate time to make this announcement, so that a proper succession and orderly handover process can take place. In the meantime I remain fully focussed on continuing to develop and strengthen our business and leadership in the circular economy.”
The announcement was made in conjunction with DS Smith announcing its half year results up to 31 October 2023.
In that period, it made £365 million operating profit compared to £418 million in the same period last year.
It said that a challenging environment had seen a decline in like-for-like box volumes in the first half of its financial year of 4.7%. However, it expected the second half to show positive momentum.
Miles Roberts said: “I am pleased with the performance for the first half of the year. Our focus on value-added packaging solutions to predominantly FMCG customers, together with the benefit from our self-help productivity initiatives and flexible supply chain has driven a robust profit performance.
“Our Q2 volume performance was improved versus Q1 and we expect this trend to continue with H2 volumes stronger than H1, sequentially and on a like for like basis, as we continue to win market share.
“While we anticipate markets to remain challenging, we remain focused on our customers and our costs and expect to deliver full year results in line with management expectations. Looking forward we remain confident in our business model and our capital and operational investment programmes which drive innovation, growth, improving productivity and environmental efficiency.”
For Northern Europe, DS Smith reported that “organic corrugated box volumes across the region declined more than the Group average. This region, which includes Germany and the UK has a greater weighting to industrial and e-commerce customers which have seen the biggest sectoral declines, and the economic environment has been particularly tough.”
It added that revenues decreased by 17% in the region due to a combination of the decrease in box volumes, reductions in sales prices for packaging, externally sold paper and volumes of recycled fibre.
Its adjusted operating profit increased however, which it said reflected resilient pricing, due to a higher proportion of indexed pricing meaning packaging pricing reduced less than input costs with return on sales increasing to 7.9%.
In Southern Europe France was weaker than Iberia and revenue declined by 23% in this region.
