Some regard DS Smith as a desperately dull packaging company. Corrugated packaging materials are not the most exciting subject for a dinner party conversation, admittedly, but investors have reason to thank the company’s stability. The shares have gone from little more than £1 five years ago to 412½p, up another 25½p on a set of results that hardly puts a foot wrong.
DS Smith has achieved this by setting rigorous targets and then hitting them, and by finding packaging companies across Europe that are in a position to be bought and integrating them. There are structural drivers to growth, such as the switch to convenience stores and internet shopping.
When you receive something ordered online, big chunks of the box are often empty. Internet retailers