Can maker Rexam's half-year profit beats expectations

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Aug 1 (Reuters) - Rexam Plc (LSE: REX.L - news) , the world's No. 2 drinks can maker by revenue, posted a better-than-expected underlying pretax profit for the first half as increased volumes softened the effect of high aluminium prices and a stronger pound.

The company's shares rose as much as 3.7 percent, making the stock the second-biggest gainer on the FTSE-100 Index.

Rexam reported a 4 percent rise in beverage can volumes, driven mostly by strong organic growth in Europe.

Aluminium premiums, or the cost to get metal out of storage, have soared to all-time highs in Europe and North America.

The surge in premiums pushed up the company's net additional costs to 7 million pounds ($11.8 million) in the first half.

Rexam competes with U.S.-listed Ball Corp (NYSE: BLL - news) and Crown Holdings, and is the only beverage can maker listed on the London Stock Exchange (Other OTC: LDNXF - news) .

Rexam's underlying pretax profit fell to 166 million pounds for the six months ended June 30 from 169 million pounds a year earlier, beating the average analyst estimate of 156.6 million pounds.

Revenue fell 5 percent to 1.88 billion pounds, but was higher than analysts' average expectation of 1.85 billion pounds.

Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) in the company were up 0.3 percent at 502.5 pence at 1033 GMT on the London Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bangalore; Editing by Robin Paxton and Simon Jennings)