February 4: Customers in the food canning business buying ahead helped Silgan, North America’s largest specialist food canmaking company, to ship significantly higher volumes in the fourth quarter of 2008. Sales were up by 8.5 percent to US$742 million compared with the same period in 2007, and profits up by a similar margin to $50.3m.
“We expect further earnings growth in 2009,” said Tony Allott, chief executive of Silgan Holdings (right).
Higher selling prices for cans, the result of pass-through of raw material price increases, helped Silgan Container to post a record sales year for 2008. Net sales of metal containers were up 6.3 percent to $1.79 billion, compared with 2007, and net profit was up 7.2 percent to $162m.
