Astrapak profits soar

Related tags Organic growth

Significant investment by South African packaging group Astrapak
has helped the company's revenue climb a staggering 65 per cent in
the six months to August, CE Ray Crewe-Brown announced yesterday.

Significant investment by South African packaging group Astrapak has helped the company's revenue climb a staggering 65 per cent in the six months to August, CE Ray Crewe-Brown announced yesterday.

According to a report from Business Day​, the R124 million (€12.5m) investment is expected to bring further benefits as synergies in purchasing, production and management are extracted.

Crewe-Brown said the acquisition of the 75 per cent stake in Master Plastics, which makes rigid bottles for the pharmaceutical, personal care and beverage industries, would help to expand Astrapak's share of the packaging market and would assist in creating "a meaningful listed entity".

Crewe-Brown added that organic growth in the company's existing businesses had been 9 per cent, suggesting that consumer demand was holding up, despite recent interest rate hikes.

"We have taken market share, but the whole market is doing well,"​ said Crewe-Brown.

"The 9 per cent organic volume growth once again confirms that plastics is the growth area in packaging and that Astrapak has achieved a real growth in market share. Despite the increases in interest rates, we have not seen any market slowdown, with packaging for food holding up.

"Meanwhile, the weaker rand at the beginning of the year has made SA products very competitive, which has led to a lot of direct and indirect exports."

Astrapak's revenue shot up to R635.7 million for the six months to August, from R386.3 million for the same period last year. Master Plastics had contributed R178 million of the R250 million increase.

Related topics Processing & Packaging