DS Smith
Revenue £1.95bn Dividend 4p
It is now more than five years since Miles Roberts arrived as chief executive of DS Smith and vowed to make it the leader in recycled packaging for consumer goods. As mission statements go this is not exactly up there with putting a man on the Moon, but he has achieved his aim.
The company has set itself various performance criteria to beat, and duly beaten them. Return on sales then was below 5 per cent; today it is 9.4 per cent, at the top of the stated 8 to 10 per cent range. DS Smith has done this, along with other packaging companies in different areas such as Mondi and RPC, by buying smaller businesses in Europe, putting