Rexam should be an extremely easy business to understand. The healthcare side is sold, and £450 million returned to shareholders. Rexam is now the world’s biggest producer of cans, just, for the drinks industry.
The main driver should be the volume of cans produced, itself a factor of the demand in its various global markets. That production will also be affected by the rate of investment in new manufacturing facilities.
Simple enough. But there were some complicating factors in the halfway figures. The first is the inevitable currency factor, the high pound taking £20 million off reported profits. The second is the higher price of aluminium, caused by an increase in the cost of storing the stuff, the subject of a long-running row in the