With the intensification of global economic fluctuations and the acceleration of consumer market iteration, the packaging industry is at a critical juncture of stock competition and pattern reconstruction. Every strategic action taken by a leading enterprise is reshaping the development trajectory of the global supply chain, and the latest developments of Amco undoubtedly become the focus of industry attention.

Recently, the world's leading packaging solutions provider, Amco, officially released its financial performance for the first half of the 2026 fiscal year (July 1 December 31, 2025). This financial report is of great significance - it is not only a milestone answer to its aggressive expansion strategy, but also the first semi annual report after completing the historic acquisition of Berry International.

Against the backdrop of widespread pressure on global consumer goods sales, Amco has delivered a leapfrog growth with efficient capital operations and precise strategic implementation. This not only demonstrates the hard power of resource integration of top enterprises, but also sends a clear signal to the industry: through deep optimization of product combinations, Amco is accelerating its rise as a global consumer goods packaging leader covering all fields such as nutrition, health, beauty, and wellness, leading the industry to transform from "scale competition" to "value competition".

Core financial report interpretation: Collaborative efforts in mergers and acquisitions lead to comprehensive performance explosion

In the first half of the 2026 fiscal year, Amco's core financial indicators showed explosive growth, and the synergy effect of the acquisition of Berry International continued to be released, becoming the core engine of performance growth.

The revenue scale has reached a new high, and the contribution of mergers and acquisitions is highlighted. During the reporting period, the company achieved a net sales revenue of 11.194 billion US dollars (approximately 83.2 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 70%. After excluding factors such as asset divestment, the acquisition of Berry International alone resulted in an additional sales revenue of up to 4.5 billion US dollars, directly pushing the business volume of Amco to a new height. It should be noted that the acquisition of Berry International by Amco for approximately $8.4 billion, the merger of two of the world's top packaging companies, was already seen by the industry as a key move to rewrite the industry landscape. Now, this financial report confirms the strategic value of this merger - the annual revenue of the merged company is expected to exceed $24 billion, becoming an absolute "carrier" level enterprise in the global packaging industry.

Profitability is upgraded synchronously, and the "gold content" of profits continues to increase. With the dual assistance of cost control and synergy, Amco's profit performance is particularly impressive: adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) reached 1.736 billion US dollars in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 89%; Adjusted EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) was $1.29 billion, a year-on-year increase of 77%.

The structural optimization of profit margins is more worthy of attention. The adjusted EBITDA profit margin has risen from 13.9% in the same period last year to 15.5%, and the adjusted EBIT profit margin has increased to 11.5%, indicating that the company is expanding its scale while continuously improving its profitability quality. Even after deducting significant acquisition related costs and integration expenses, the net profit calculated under US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) still reached $439 million; If calculated according to non GAAP standards, the net profit is as high as $848 million, a year-on-year increase of 82%, and the adjusted earnings per share (EPS) is $1.83, a year-on-year increase of 14%, fully demonstrating the strong resilience of the business model.

The explosive performance of Amco is not driven by a single sector, but by the dual wheel drive of the two core sectors of global soft packaging and hard packaging, especially the leapfrog growth of the hard packaging sector, which has become the biggest highlight of this financial report.

Global flexible packaging: synergy to hedge industry pressure

As a traditional advantage sector of Amco, the global flexible packaging solutions division has achieved steady growth, with net sales of 6.445 billion US dollars during the reporting period, a year-on-year increase of 24%. Under a fixed exchange rate, the acquisition contribution after deducting asset divestment is approximately $1.2 billion.

Despite facing some operational pressure due to factors such as weak global consumer goods sales and fluctuations in raw material costs, the synergy effect has been continuously released by integrating Berry International's research and development, production, and channel resources, successfully offsetting the downward pressure on the industry. After the adjustment in the first half of the year, the EBIT of this sector reached 828 million US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 25%. The synergies brought by mergers and acquisitions contributed an additional profit increase of 83 million US dollars, marking the initial effectiveness of Amco's supply chain integration in the flexible packaging field and consolidating its leading position in the industry.

Compared to the steady progress of soft packaging, the hard packaging sector has achieved a true "qualitative change" and become the core driving force for performance growth. During the reporting period, the net sales of this sector were 4.752 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 202% calculated at a fixed exchange rate, of which the incremental contribution brought by acquisitions was about 3.3 billion US dollars.

It is worth noting that although the decrease in raw material prices led to a 3% book write off in sales, Amco successfully released the profitability of the sector by optimizing price structure and streamlining non core businesses: adjusted EBIT reached $523 million, a year-on-year increase of 339%, and the profit margin increased significantly by 350 basis points compared to last year. Behind this leap is Anmco's strategic choice - decisively cutting off low gross profit businesses and concentrating resources on the high value-added hard packaging field, achieving a fundamental improvement in business quality and confirming its strategic correctness of "focusing on high growth and high profit tracks".

Strategic Password: Mergers and acquisitions are not simply stacking, but restructuring the value chain

Peter Koneckini, CEO of Amco, admitted that the current global sales environment is still full of challenges, but the company's ability to deliver unexpected results lies in "rigorous strategic execution" and "rapid realization of synergies". This highly anticipated merger is not simply a combination of scale, but a deep level value chain reconstruction.

On the one hand, integrating research and development, production, and channel resources to achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement. By merging the global R&D networks, production bases, and customer channels of two companies, Amco achieved significantly better than expected cost savings in the first half of the year. Even though a net cash cost of $184 million was paid to advance the acquisition, resulting in a temporary expenditure of $53 million in free cash flow on the books, after excluding one-time integration costs, the daily operating cash flow increased by approximately $170 million compared to the same period last year. The strong "hematopoietic" ability provides a solid guarantee for subsequent debt repayment and research and development investment.

On the other hand, optimize the product portfolio and focus on high-value tracks. Anmco is accelerating its tilt towards anti cyclical and high growth fields such as nutrition, personal care, and healthcare - these industries have higher requirements for the functionality, safety, and environmental friendliness of packaging, and the entry barriers and profit margins are also more considerable. As demonstrated by Amco's layout in China, it rapidly incubates customized packaging solutions through the creative laboratory of the Asia Pacific R&D center, covering multiple fields such as food, daily chemical, and medical. It launches nearly 600 million new products every year, accurately matching high-end track demands.

In addition, Amco has also established the China Packaging Academy as an open platform to share technology and knowledge, cultivate industry talents, promote upstream and downstream collaborative innovation, and further consolidate its core competitiveness. This is also an important layout for its deep cultivation of China, the world's largest consumer goods market - China produces about 30% of the world's consumer goods, and the packaging market has huge potential. Amco is introducing advanced technologies from Europe and America to China, seizing opportunities in sinking markets and emerging consumer tracks, and achieving localized growth.

Industry insights:Anmco's growth logic illuminates the path of transformation in the packaging industry

Based on the steady performance in the first half of the year, Amco reiterates its full year performance expectations for fiscal year 2026: adjusted earnings per share are expected to be $4-4.15, representing a year-on-year growth of 12% -17% at fixed exchange rates; The expected annual free cash flow is 1.8-1.9 billion US dollars, indicating that mergers and acquisitions have gradually entered a period of high returns.

For the global packaging industry, especially for enterprises in the Chinese market, Amco's growth logic is of great reference value and also reveals the three major development trends of the industry in the future.

Firstly, mergers and acquisitions have become an important path for top enterprises to break through growth bottlenecks. In the era of stock competition, simple scale expansion is no longer sustainable. Only by achieving resource integration and complementary advantages through strategic mergers and acquisitions can we quickly increase market share and profitability. This has not only been confirmed by Amco, but also by leading domestic enterprises such as Baosteel Packaging and Zijiang Enterprises, which are promoting transformation and upgrading through capital operation and resource optimization.

Secondly, the transition from "price competition" to "value competition" is an inevitable trend. The future packaging is no longer just a "container", but a comprehensive solution that integrates packaging technology, environmentally friendly materials, and digital supply chain. The high value-added track will become the core battlefield of enterprise competition. Zijiang Enterprises has clearly stated that they will strengthen technological innovation, increase the proportion of high value-added products, and explore high growth areas such as pharmaceuticals and daily chemical products, which coincides with the strategy of Amco.

Thirdly, greening, intelligence, and intensification are the core directions of industry transformation. Anmco proposed the 2025 Sustainable Development Declaration as early as 2018, committed to achieving all packaging that is recyclable or reusable; Baosteel Packaging takes digitalization as its core engine, promotes the construction of a smart supply chain, and leads the metal packaging industry to transform towards smart manufacturing. The actions of these leading companies together outline the future prospects of the packaging industry.

Half year revenue exceeded 83.2 billion yuan and net profit increased by 80%. The merger between Amco and Berry International has successfully emerged from the adjustment period and officially entered the "harvest period". For this packaging giant with 165 years of history and 218 factories in 40 countries around the world, a six-month revenue of $11.1 billion is just a new starting point.

In the wave of green, intelligent, and intensive transformation in the packaging industry, Amco is using mergers and acquisitions as a lever, technological innovation as the core, and reshaping the delivery mode of global consumer goods packaging. In the second half of the 2026 fiscal year, with the further release of synergies, how many surprises will this "packaging aircraft carrier" bring to the industry? We'll wait and see.

Article reposted from: China Packaging Information Network