Mondi Shares Jump as Order Books and Prices Improve

Mondi (LON: MNDI), the packaging and paper group, saw its shares jump sharply in early trade today after half-year results that markets read as evidence a prolonged downturn has bottomed out.

Shares traded at 894.4p, up 13.3% from yesterday’s close of 789.4p, having touched a session high of 908.4p. The stock remains well below its 52-week high of 1075.13p, having fallen as low as 660p on 9 July.

Mondi published its half-year results today, reporting underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, of €379m, down from €564m a year earlier, and cutting the interim dividend to 9.42 cents from 23.33 cents. Chief executive Andrew King said geopolitical tensions had disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs, but highlighted improving order books and higher packaging-paper prices heading into the second half.

Group revenue rose to €3.975bn from €3.909bn, helped mainly by the contribution from the acquired Schumacher plants, while cash generated from operations fell to €347m from €416m. Mondi trimmed its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to €500m and booked €320m in special-item charges tied to impairments and restructuring, of which only €24m is a cash cost. Pricing actions announced in April are expected to take full effect in the third quarter, supporting the case that the first half marked the low point of the cycle.

The scale of the share reaction reflects how far expectations had fallen after the stock’s slide to 660p earlier this month. Markets appear to be treating the confirmed strengthening in order books and packaging-paper prices as more significant than the EBITDA decline itself, given management’s framing of H1 as the trough.

Whether that framing holds will become clear once the April pricing actions take full effect in the third quarter — the concrete test of whether this rally reflects a genuine recovery or merely relief that the worst has passed.