CEO Miles Roberts to retire

HY Pre tax profit down 15%

Shares down 2% in early trading

Recasts, adds details throughout

Dec 7 (Reuters) – DS Smith SMDS.L CEO Miles Roberts plans to retire after 13 years, the British cardboard maker said on Thursday, as the company reported a sharp drop in half-year profits and said the macro environment was challenging for demand.

Shares fell nearly 2% in early trading.

Roberts will step down no later than November 2025, giving the company time to identify his successor, it said. His formal notice period will start on Dec. 1, 2024.

The London-listed company, which provides packaging, paper and recycling services to companies including Amazon AMZN.O and Unilever ULVR.L, reported a 15% drop in half-year pre-tax profit to 268 million pounds ($337.12 million)

DS Smith, which operates in more than 30 countries, had cut prices and sold fewer boxes even as customers re-stock inventories. The company was also hit by strike action by its drivers in November.

Packaging companies such as DS Smith enjoyed a surge in sales during pandemic lockdowns when e-commerce demand soared but de-stocking and tougher macroeconomic conditions have weighed on its business in the last year.

DS Smith said the macro-economic environment remained challenging, but there were signs of improvement.

“Encouragingly, with destocking amongst our customers now largely over, we are seeing signs of volume improvement, with the second quarter performance being better than the first,” the company said in a statement.

For the six-months ended Oct 31, its like for like box volumes fell by 4.7%.

($1 = 0.7950 pounds)

(Reporting by Anchal Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Barbara Lewis)

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Original: AMZN Feed: UK cardboard maker DS Smith CEO to retire