Steve Voorhees Focuses on WestRock Culture, Buying KapStone, Growing Offshore, Doubling Profit, Paper360º November/December 2018

WestRock CEO Steve Voorhees is a consolidator. His company in the last three years has completed the most M&As of any in the industry. He’s done this with a focus on integrating workers from different companies into a single company that is to be superior and more efficient than the individual ones.

Since WestRock was developed in 2015 from the merging of packaging giants RockTenn and MeadWestvaco, the company under Voorhees completed nine acquisitions (see graphic), including the US$2.28 billion buy of Multi Packaging Solutions (MPS) in 2017, as well as the spin-off of its specialty chemicals business, the sale of its dispensing business, and the sale of most of its land and development assets. The acquisitions dramatically grew WestRock in size, and gave it greater geographic and end-product reach for its containerboard, corrugated boxes, box-board, and folding cartons. The firm also gained increased downstream integration from its board mills to its box and carton plants. WestRock, on track to US$16 billion in revenue and with 45,000 employees, is the second largest US paper industry company, behind International Paper (IP). It is ranked No. 2 in containerboard and No. 1 in boxboard, based on RISI capacity figures for North America.“

He’s a rare successful US industry consolidator—with sustained shareholder returns to prove it,” a consultant for consumer and paper companies said.

Wall Street and North American industry analysts selected Voorhees as the RISI North American 2018 CEO of the Year. It is the sec-ond year in a row that a top American con-tainerboard and corrugated company leader won the award. Packaging Corp. of America’s (PCA) Mark Kowlzan won in 2017.

TAPPI conference proceedings and presentations, technical papers, and publication articles provide technical and management data and solutions on topics covering the Pulp, Paper, Tissue, Corrugated Packaging, Flexible Packaging, Nanotechnology and Converting Industries.

Simply select the quantity, add to your cart and your conference paper, presentation or article will be available for immediate download.