DS Smith has announced increasing volumes in its corrugated packaging business in a pre-close statement ahead of its half-year results.

The group said that it expects the six months to 31 October to show significant earnings per share growth compared to 7.7p for the same period last year and also hailed the contribution of its French subsidiary Otor.

 DS Smith said it had completed a refinancing of its revolving credit facility with a five-year agreement for ￡610m. Rachel Stevens, head of investor relations, said that the facility had been agreed with a syndicate of banks, including some that the group have worked with before and some additional lenders.

The company said it was on track to reach its target of ￡10m in procurement savings by the end of the financial year through a range of efficiency measures.

Stevens added: "DS Smith has historically had a lot of autonomy in different parts of the business and buying across the whole company using group buying power will enable the company to save money."

DS Smith is also targeting an additional ￡10m savings in operating expenditure in the UK and a futher €13m (￡11.37m) in cost synergies from the Otor acquisition by April 2014.

Stevens said the UK operation of DS Smith had historically been run as three separate businesses and that the cost savings would come from bringing together some operations. She said that headcount reduction was "not the main focus" of the programme.

Over the past six months DS Smith has sold its Higher Kings Mill, which produced 34kt per annum of specialist paper, as part of its strategy to reduce non-integrated paper manufacturing. It has also announced plans to close its paper mill at Hollins, which produced 95kt of paper.

The group said it was "confident" in its trading outlook for the year, despite the current economic climate and confirmed its medium term financial objectives as margin improvement, return on capital and cash generation.