Most valuable company of its kind in South Africa feels the pain

Mondi is feeling the pain of its industry experiencing a prolonged cyclical downturn, though the packaging giant remains optimistic about its ability to withstand headwinds.

In its 2025 financial year, the company’s basic earnings and profit for the year are down nearly 25%.

While Mondi’s headquarters are now based in Europe, the company traces its roots back to the early 20th century in South Africa. 

What started as a small paper mill in Durban in the 1960s is now a global leader in packaging and paper, and the most valuable packaging company listed on the JSE.

Mondi released its results for the year ended 31 December 2025 on Thursday, 19 February 2026.

These results revealed a 3.33% increase in revenue to €7.66 billion (R145.14 billion). However, the company’s profit for the year was down 24.81% to €197 million (R3.73 billion).

Its earnings also declined, with basic earnings per share down 23.83% to 37.4 euro cents (R7.09).

Mondi CEO Andrew King described these results as “resilient”, saying they reflect the strength of the company’s cost-advantaged and integrated assets and the quality of its product offering.

“We have intensified our focus on operational excellence and cost discipline,” he said.

“Bringing together Corrugated Packaging and Uncoated Fine Paper has streamlined our organisation and accelerated the delivery of operational synergies.” 

“Our cost-out programmes continue to deliver tangible results and the integration of Schumacher is capturing additional synergies.” 

“At the same time, we are proactively optimising our production footprint, including the recently announced closures of three plants across our paper bags and corrugated solutions network.”

Going into 2026, King said it remains unclear when geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions will improve. 

He noted that paper prices are modestly lower, on average, than those seen in the final quarter of 2025. 

Like many other companies, Mondi was hit hard by the economic downturn resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. It affected demand for packaging and paper products, resulting in lower sales and revenue.

Mondi was dealt another blow when the company lost a third of its value due to the then-imminent Russia-Ukraine war. The Russian market accounted for a fifth of the company’s profits and offered solid growth prospects.

However, in December 2022, Mondi announced an agreement to sell its three Russian packaging converting operations to the Gotek Group.

“We are, however, confident in our ability to navigate these headwinds effectively through disciplined volume growth as we leverage our recent capacity expansions, strong margin management and cost optimisation,” King said in the company’s latest results.

Mondi declared a total ordinary dividend of 28.25 euro cents (R5.35) for 2025, which is nearly 60% lower than its 2024 dividend.