WestRock Company (WestRock) operates as a multinational provider of sustainable fiber-based paper and packaging solutions.
The company partners with its customers to provide differentiated, sustainable paper, and packaging solutions that help them win in the marketplace. Its team members support customers around the world from its operating and business locations in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
On December 1, 2022, the company completed its acquisition of the rema...
WestRock Company (WestRock) operates as a multinational provider of sustainable fiber-based paper and packaging solutions.
The company partners with its customers to provide differentiated, sustainable paper, and packaging solutions that help them win in the marketplace. Its team members support customers around the world from its operating and business locations in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
On December 1, 2022, the company completed its acquisition of the remaining 67.7% interest in Gondi, S.A. de C.V. (Grupo Gondi). In addition, in fiscal 2023 (September 30, 2023), the company divested its interior partitions converting operations (its ownership interest in RTS Packaging, LLC), sold its Chattanooga, TN uncoated recycled paperboard mill, sold its ownership interest in an unconsolidated displays joint venture, sold the company's Seven Hills Paperboard LLC (Seven Hills) mill joint venture in Lynchburg, Virginia, and sold its Eaton, IN, and Aurora, Illinois uncoated recycled paperboard mills.
Transaction Agreement with Smurfit Kappa
On September 12, 2023, the company entered into a transaction agreement (the Transaction Agreement) with Smurfit Kappa Group plc, a public limited company incorporated in Ireland (Smurfit Kappa), Cepheidway Limited (to be renamed Smurfit WestRock plc), a private limited company incorporated in Ireland (ListCo), and Sun Merger Sub, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned subsidiary of ListCo (Merger Sub).
Products
The company is one of the largest integrated producers of linerboard, white-top linerboard and corrugating medium (containerboard) and kraft paper in North America. The company serves primarily corrugated packaging markets. The company is one of the largest producers of paperboard in North America, and it operates both integrated virgin and recycled fiber mills. Its mill system manufactures for the benefit of each reportable segment that ultimately sells the associated paper and packaging products to its external customers. Additionally, the company's recycling operations are conducted as a procurement function, focusing on the procurement of high quality recycled fiber for its mill system.
Segments
The company operates through four reportable segments: Corrugated Packaging, Consumer Packaging, Global Paper, and Distribution.
Corrugated Packaging
The company's Corrugated Packaging segment substantially consists of its integrated corrugated converting operations and generates its revenues primarily from the sale of corrugated containers and other corrugated products, including displays. Corrugated packaging is used to provide protective packaging for shipment and distribution of food, paper, health and beauty, and other household, consumer, commercial and industrial products. The company's integrated corrugated packaging system manufactures primarily containerboard, corrugated sheets, corrugated packaging, and preprinted linerboard for sale to consumer and industrial products manufacturers and corrugated box manufacturers. The company produces a wide range of high-quality corrugated containers designed to protect, ship, store, promote, and display products made to its customers' specifications.
The company converts corrugated sheets into corrugated products ranging from one-color protective cartons to graphically brilliant point-of-purchase packaging. Its corrugated container plants serve local customers and regional and large national accounts. The company provides customers with innovative packaging solutions to help them promote and sell their products. It provides structural and graphic design, engineering services and custom, proprietary and standard automated packaging machines, offering customers turn-key installation, automation, line integration, and packaging solutions. The company offers a machinery solution that creates pouches that replace single-use plastics, including bubble mailers. To make corrugated sheet stock, it feeds linerboard and corrugating medium into a corrugator that flutes the medium to specified sizes, glues the linerboard and fluted medium together, and slits and cuts the resulting corrugated paperboard into sheets to customer specifications.
The company designs, manufactures, and in certain cases, packs temporary displays for sale to consumer products companies and retailers. These displays are used as marketing tools to support new product introductions and specific product promotions in mass merchandising stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, home improvement stores and other retail locations. It also designs, manufactures and, in some cases, pre-assembles permanent displays for these customers. It makes temporary displays primarily from corrugated paperboard. Unlike temporary displays, permanent displays are restocked with the company's customers' product; therefore, they are constructed primarily from metal, plastic, wood, and other durable materials. The company manufactures and distributes point of sale material utilizing litho, screens and digital printing technologies. It manufactures lithographic laminated packaging for sale to its customers that require packaging with high quality graphics and strength characteristics.
Consumer Packaging
The company's Consumer Packaging segment consists of its integrated consumer converting operations and generates its revenues primarily from the sale of consumer packaging products, such as folding cartons, interior partitions (before divestiture in September 2023), inserts and labels. It is one of the largest manufacturers of folding cartons in North America. Its folding cartons are used to package items, such as food, paper, beverages, dairy products, confectionery, health and beauty and other household consumer, commercial, and industrial products, primarily for retail sale. The company's folding cartons are also used by its customers to attract consumer attention at the point-of-sale. It manufactures express mail packages for the overnight courier industry, provide inserts and labels, as well as rigid packaging and other printed packaging products, such as transaction cards (e.g., credit, debit, etc.), brochures, product literature, marketing materials (such as booklets, folders, inserts, cover sheets and slipcases) and grower tags and plant stakes for the horticultural market.
For the global healthcare market, the company manufactures paperboard packaging for over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Its customers generally use its inserts and labels to provide customer product information either inside a secondary package (e.g., a folding carton) or affixed to the outside of a primary package (e.g., a bottle). Folding cartons typically protect customers' products during shipment and distribution, and employ graphics to promote them at retail. The company manufactures folding cartons from recycled and virgin paperboard, laminated paperboard and various substrates with specialty characteristics, such as grease masking and microwave ability. The company prints, coats, die-cuts, and glues the cartons to customer specifications and ship finished cartons to customers for assembling, filling. and sealing.
The company employs a broad range of offset, flexographic, gravure, backside printing, coating and finishing technologies, as well as iridescent, holographic, textured and dimensional effects to provide differentiated packaging products, and supports its customers with new package development, innovation and design services, and package testing services. Prior to divesting its interior partitions operations in September 2023, it manufactured and sold its solid fiber and corrugated partitions and die-cut paperboard components principally to glass container manufacturers, producers of beer, food, wine, spirits, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and the automotive industry.
Global Paper
The company's Global Paper segment consists of its commercial paper operations and generates its revenues primarily from the sale of containerboard, paperboard, and specialty grades to external customers, and it serves primarily corrugated packaging, folding carton, food service, liquid packaging, tobacco, and commercial print markets. The company sells its products globally to customers who value its scale, wide range of products, and service.
Distribution
The company's Distribution segment consists of its distribution and display assembly operations and generates its revenues primarily from the distribution of packaging products and assembly of display products. It distributes corrugated packaging materials and other specialty packaging products, including stretch film, void fill, carton sealing tape and other specialty tapes, through its network of warehouses and distribution facilities. The company also provides contract packing services, such as multi-product promotional packing and product manipulation, such as multipacks and onpacks.
Seasonality
While the company's businesses are not materially impacted by seasonality, there is some variability in demand that occurs from quarter to quarter, with net sales in the first quarter of each fiscal year (year ended September 2023) typically being the lowest.
Sales and Marketing
During fiscal 2023, approximately two-thirds of the company's coated natural kraft tons shipped, approximately three-fifths of its coated recycled paperboard tons shipped and approximately one-fifth of its bleached paperboard tons shipped were delivered to its converting operations, primarily to manufacture folding cartons, and approximately four-fifths of its containerboard tons shipped, including trade swaps and buy/sell transactions, were delivered to its converting operations to manufacture corrugated products. The company has the ability to move its internal sourcing among certain of its mills to optimize the efficiency of its operations.
The company markets its products primarily through its own sales force. It also markets a number of its products through independent sales representatives and independent distributors.
Transportation
The principal markets for the company's products are in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
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