How Do They Make Money?

Crown Holdings, formerly known as Crown, Cork, & Seal, is another "boring" but successful company frequently mentioned in One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch.

Founded all the way back in 1892, Crown Holdings is a giant in the "specialty packaging" industry. That's a fancy way of saying "they're good at making metal cans."

If you've ever eaten canned food or drank from a can, you've probably used a Crown product: 1 in 5 beverage cans worldwide are made by Crown, and the company makes 1 in 3 food cans in North America.

Per their 2023 Annual Report, Crown currently makes money via the following:

• Global beverage cans (63%)

• Transit packaging (airbags, steel straps, plastic straps, industrial film, etc.) (19%)

• "Other" packaging products (food cans, aerosol cans, etc.) (18%)

Crown is the epitome of a boring and unsexy - yet effective - business.