The plastics packaging business of Nampak (Sandton / Republic of South Africa; www.nampak.co.za) suffered a 4.9% fall in trading profit (operating profit before exceptional items) to ZAR 154m (EUR 15.5m) in the six months to 31 March 2010. European operations contributed ZAR 53m (EUR 5.6m) – up 2% – as the margin improved from 6.0% to 8.3%. Plastics revenues slipped 11% to ZAR 1,765m (EUR 188m) of which Europe contributed ZAR 640m (EUR 68m), down 25% due mostly to the insolvency of Dairy Farmers of Britain (Nantwich, Cheshire / UK) – see Plasteurope.com of 18.08.2009.

At group level the operating profit increased 13.1% to ZAR 799.6m (EUR 85m) as the margin rose to 8.5% from 7.0%. Revenue decreased 6.5% to ZAR 9,433m (EUR 1,005m), while pretax profits jumped 21.1% to ZAR 676m (EUR 72m). In Europe sales of GBP 175m (EUR 210m) resembled those of last year, whilst trading profit increased from GBP 6.7m (EUR 8.0m) to GBP 8.9m (EUR10.7m).

Nampak has completed a series of disposals and closures at its operations in Africa in line with its strategy of fixing, closing or selling underperforming businesses – see Plasteurope.com of 01.12.2009. As a result, “the board expects a considerable improvement in earnings for the year ending September 2010,” says group CEO Andrew Marshall.