Increased demand for sustainable packaging boosted Smurfit Kappa Group's performance in the third quarter.
The packaging giant hailed a "strong" performance as its earnings before tax and interest increased by 11% year-on-year to €1.25 billion (£1.1 billion) for the first nine months of the year.
The company said that revenues jumped 3% to €6.85 billion (£5.9 billion) for the three quarters to September, despite macroeconomic and political challenges.
READ MORE: Hurricane hits profits at oil and gas giant
Tony Smurfit, chief executive officer of the group, said consumers are "increasingly demanding sustainable packaging solutions" and the company is "ideally positioned" to take advantage of this trend.
Shares in the company lifted 1.7% higher at 2,586p.
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has upgraded its earnings forecast as its shingles vaccine performed much better than expected, for the second time in a year.
Shingrix grew nearly 90% to £535 million as it continued to expand in the US, boosting overall vaccines turnover by 20%.
READ MORE: Dozens of jobs face axe at wind farm tower firm
Partly as a result, total revenue hit £9.39 billion, compared to the £9.04 billion analysts had forecast.
Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) were 38.6p in the quarter, compared to the 33p analyst consensus.
The company now expects its full year earnings to be flat after it told shareholders in July to be wary of a 3% to 5% drop.
GSK has already upgraded its outlook once this year on a strong performance from Shingrix.
Investors rewarded the news, sending shares up as 2.9% to 1,788.2p in the minutes after the results, their highest point in years.
Deutsche Bank slumped to an €832 million (£718 million) loss in the third quarter as it was hit by costs from its major restructuring programme.
The German lender saw shares dive after it announced the restructuring plans which will result in around 18,000 job losses.
READ MORE: Walkers Shortbread jobs fear after 25% US tariffs hit
It has been reported that the axe could fall heavily in the UK as it looks to slash roles in its equity trading division.
The quarterly loss follows a €3.1 billion euros (£2.7 billion) loss in the second quarter.
The bank said it is still aiming to break even in 2020 but analysts have raised concerns about the bank's ability to raise revenue.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article