Smurfit Kappa Group plc (LON:SKG) has announced a trading update for the 9 months to 30 September 2022.
First Nine Months Overview:
| €m | YTD 2022 | YTD 2021 | Change |
| Revenue | €9724 | €7,287 | 33% |
| EBITDA | €1767 | €1,235 | 43% |
| EBITDA Margin | 18.2% | 17.0% | |
| Operating Profit before Exceptional Items | €1258 | €772 | 63% |
| Profit before Income Tax | €1141 | €645 | 77% |
| Basic EPS (cent) | 333.4 | 177.8 | 88% |
| Pre-exceptional Basic EPS (cent) | 333.4 | 188.4 | 77% |
| Free Cash Flow | 309 | 297 | 4% |
| Return on Capital Employed | 20.6% | 15.6% | |
| Net Debt | €3028 | €2589 | 17% |
| Net Debt to EBITDA (LTM) | 1.4x | 1.6x |
Key points:
- Revenue growth of 33% to €9,724 million
- EBITDA growth of 43% to €1,767 million with an EBITDA margin of 18.2%
- Net Debt to EBITDA ratio below 1.4x
- ROCE of 20.6%
- Ongoing capital investment to support customers and to optimise SKG’s system
Tony Smurfit, Group CEO, commented:
“SKG has delivered a very strong performance in the first nine months with revenue growth of 33%, EBITDA of €1,767 million and an EBITDA margin of 18.2%. We continue to drive improvement across all areas of our business, consistent with the delivery of our strategy, providing the most innovative and sustainable packaging through our integrated business model, ensuring security of supply to our over 65,000 customers.
“Significant cost inflation is being recovered in corrugated box pricing as anticipated. Against strong comparisons, corrugated box volumes were flat for the first nine months.
“The investments we have made over the last number of years are making the Group ever more efficient with a customer-led focus on quality, innovation and sustainability. With SKG’s scale and geographic reach across 36 countries, together with the many specialist businesses within the Group, there remain many opportunities for growth.
“Our results reflect the steps we have taken and the quality of the Smurfit Kappa business. We expect to deliver EBITDA of approximately €2.3 billion for the full year 2022.”
