Smurfit WestRock plc (SW)

Smurfit WestRock makes corrugated board — the box almost everything ordered online arrives in.

The company was formed by merging a European and an American producer and runs an integrated model: its own mills make the paper and its own plants turn it into boxes. That protects against raw material price swings and lets it serve a large customer identically across continents.

Demand is steadier than for most industrial materials: a box is needed in a downturn too, only its contents change. Growth is supported by online retail and by regulators pushing paper packaging in place of plastic. Risks: recovered paper and energy prices, industry overcapacity and the cost of combining two large organisations. A dividend is paid.