Sonoco Products Co., the world's biggest maker of composite cans, said second-quarter profit fell 14 percent because of lower demand for packaging and costs to clean a river. The shares fell the most in at least 23 years.

Net income dropped to $42.4 million, or 41 cents a share, from $49.3 million, or 49 cents, Hartsville, South Carolina-based Sonoco said today in a statement. Profit excluding some expenses was 56 cents a share, missing the 59-cent average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales gained 8.4 percent to $994.4 million.

Sonoco, led by Chief Executive Officer Harris E. DeLoach Jr., is closing plants to cut costs and boosting sales with acquisitions. Demand fell at the two biggest units, consumer packaging and paper tubes, used as cores for rolls of paper and textiles. Earnings from tubes and cores tumbled 38 percent, and consumer-packaging profit fell 15 percent, Sonoco said.

``They had some weakness across the board,'' Keybanc Capital Markets analyst Christopher D. Manuel said in a phone interview. ``Most of the problems they had were self-inflicted, meaning they can fix them by the back half of the year.''

Consumer-packaging profit was cut by problems switching to new equipment for making flexible packaging, said Manuel, who rates the shares ``hold.''

Shares Fall

Sonoco dropped $6.30, or 14 percent, to $38 at 4:30 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The decline was the largest since at least May 1984, according to Bloomberg data. Still, the stock has gained 15 percent in the past year.

``Operating profit in consumer packaging fell well below our expectations on the back of a drop in margins, reflecting lower volumes, price reductions in flexible packaging'' and sales of less-profitable products, J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Claudia Shank said in a report. She rates the stock ``overweight'' and had estimated profit of 58 cents a share.

Third-quarter profit, excluding some items, will be 62 cents to 65 cents a share, Sonoco said. Earnings were projected to be 65 cents, the average estimate of six analysts in the Bloomberg survey.

Profit in the full year will be $2.36 to $2.40 a share, Sonoco said, unchanged from its April forecast. The average estimate of analysts was $2.42.

Second-quarter costs include $11.9 million, or 12 cents a share, to increase a reserve for removing pollution from the lower Fox River near company paper mills in Wisconsin, and $2.8 million, or 3 cents, in restructuring costs.

Consumer Packaging

Profit from consumer-packaging products, including paperboard cans and plastic lids, dropped to $22.5 million from $26.3 million because of lower demand, some price cuts and higher labor costs, Sonoco said.

Profit in the tubes and cores business, Sonoco's largest, fell to $22.9 million from $37.2 million. Excluding some costs, profit increased 15 percent to $43 million on higher prices and acquisitions, the company said. Sonoco is the world's biggest maker of paper and composite tubes and cores.

Sonoco on May 31 acquired Matrix Packaging Inc. for $210 million, tripling capacity to make blow-molded plastic containers, including bottles for personal care and household chemicals. Acquisitions and new joint ventures have contributed 60 percent of Sonoco's sales growth since 2000.

The company said in October it would save $23 million a year by closing 12 plants. Restructuring probably will add 8 cents a share to profit in 2007, the company said in December.

Sonoco had sales of $917 million in the second quarter of 2006.

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