Rexam’s sales rose to £4.6 billion last year including the benefit of recent acquisitions and foreign currency exchange, an increase of 28% on 2007.

The company’s underlying operating profit, which excludes exceptional items, the amortisation of certain acquired intangible assets and discontinued operations, increased 32% to £466m and the groups’s margins improved from 9.8% to 10.1%.

Commenting on the 2008 results, Leslie Van de Walle, Rexam’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “Rexam is a resilient business as proved by this set of results, but we are not immune to the global economic crisis, and trading in the second half of 2008 weakened as market conditions deteriorated. However, the company is flexible and able to adapt to new, more challenging circumstances without compromising our vision of being the world’s leading consumer packaging company. We recognise that times are uncertain and that it is difficult to predict how the economic downturn will affect our trading in 2009.