LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Packaging manufacturer DS Smith on Thursday said chief executive Miles Roberts would be retiring no later than the end of next November as it also unveiled a fall in interim profit.

"The macro-economic environment has remained challenging with overall market demand continuing to be weak, leading to a decline in like for like box volumes of 4.7% compared to H1 FY22/23," Smith said in a statement.

"Encouragingly, with destocking amongst our customers now largely over, we are seeing signs of volume improvement, with the second quarter performance being better than the first, albeit remaining below the comparable prior period."

The company said the largest decline in volume was in Northern Europe, which includes the UK and Germany, where it has a greater weighting to industrial and e-commerce customers.

Revenue fell 18% to £3.51bn, driven by declines in box volumes (£142m) and lower selling prices (£615m) across the group.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com

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