Business is booming for packaging specialists, with barely room to fit a cigarette paper between the three leaders of the pack.
Mondi, the biggest of the main listed companies, put out an enviable trading update yesterday that suggested it was on course for another year of strong profits. That the shares closed down ½p at £17.75 shows just how bad the market rout is and how the sector has suddenly found itself out of favour.
Mondi was founded in South Africa in 1967 by Anglo American when the mining group built the Merebank mill in Durban. It has expanded steadily organically and through strategic acquisitions of paper mills and specialist paper, plastics and packaging companies. In 2007 it was spun out of Anglo and took