MeadWestvaco

MeadWestvaco Corporation
Public
Traded as NYSE: MWV
S&P 500 Component
Fate merged with RockTenn
Predecessor The Mead Corporation
Westvaco
Successor WestRock
Founded January 2002 (2002-01)
Headquarters Richmond, Virginia
Key people
 John A. Luke, Jr., Chairman & CEO
James A. Buzzard, President
E. Mark Rajkowski, CFO & Senior Vice President
Revenue US$6,060,000,000 (2011)[1]
US$422,000,000 (2011)[1]
US$246,000,000 (2011)[1]
Number of employees
 23,000 (2014) [2]
Website www.mwv.com

MeadWestvaco Corporation was an American packaging company based in Richmond, Virginia. It had approximately 23,000 employees. In February 2006, it moved its corporate headquarters to Richmond. In March 2008, the company announced a change to start using "MWV" as its brand, but the legal name of the company remains MeadWestvaco.[3]

MeadWestvaco announced in January 2015 that it would form a combined $16 billion company with RockTenn to take on market leaders in the packaging industry in the US.[4] The new company is titled WestRock.

Overview

MeadWestvaco was a producer of packaging, specialty papers, consumer and office products and specialty chemicals. The company had 153 operating and office locations in 30 countries, and serves customers in over 100 countries. The company’s paperboard, package and paper brands included Carrier Kote, Custom Kote, Printkote, Tango, Digipak, Amaray, Dosepak and Vision. MeadWestvaco held leading positions in the markets it served. MeadWestvaco managed over 3 million acres (12,000 km²) of forestlands meeting stringent environmental standards and certified to Sustainable Forestry Initiative standards.[5][6]

Financial information

2008[2] 2007 2006 2005
Net Sales (US$M) 6,637 6,906 6,530 6,170
Net Earnings (Loss) (US$M) 90 285 93 28

History

MeadWestvaco was formed in January 2002 as the result of a merger between The Mead Corporation of Dayton, Ohio, and Westvaco (originally the Piedmont Pulp and Paper Company and then The West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company).

The ancestor of the Mead Paper Company started out in the paper business in 1846 but did not adopt the name Mead until 1882. Over the decades, Mead diversified into many different businesses and economic sectors, through purchases, mergers and joint ventures. It was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1935. In 1966, Mead acquired Westab, whose product line included the Big Chief tablet, Spiral Notebook brand and Hytone Notebooks.

In 1968, Mead entered the information technology sector by acquiring a small company called Data Corporation for $6 million, and renamed it Mead Data Central. Mead was originally interested in an inkjet printing system developed by Data. However, Data had also been working on a full-text information retrieval system for the U.S. Air Force, and by 1967 had adapted this product to the task of indexing and searching legal precedent as part of an experiment with the Ohio State Bar. After an Arthur D. Little study indicated that the information retrieval product had a promising future, Mead Data Central launched it as the LEXIS legal research system in 1973. In December 1994, Mead sold the LexisNexis system to Reed Elsevier for $1.5 billion.

The U.S. state of Illinois subsequently audited Mead's income tax returns and charged Mead an additional $4 million in income tax and penalties for the sale of LexisNexis; Mead paid the tax under protest, then sued for a refund in an Illinois state court. On April 15, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Mead that the Illinois courts had incorrectly applied the Court's precedents on whether Illinois could constitutionally apply its income tax to Mead, an out-of-state, Ohio-based corporation.[7] The Court reversed and remanded so that the lower courts could apply the correct test and determine whether Mead and Lexis were a "unitary" business.

In 1986 Mead acquired Ampad makers of legal pads which it sold in 1992 to Bain Capital.

Mead acquired in 1994 from a consortium of banks that had purchased Olympia and York from the receiver, O&Y's subsidiary through Abitibi-Price the Hilroy companies.

In 2005, the Papers business unit—including both Mead and Westvaco paper mills—was sold to the investment firm Cerberus Capital Management for about $2.3 billion. The new company is called NewPage Corporation,which operated from Dayton, Ohio for a time until it outgrew its facilities. NewPage is currently headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio.

In 2008, MeadWestvaco sold its Charleston, SC kraft paper mill to Kapstone Paper and Packaging.[8]


MeadWestvaco began using the "MWV" brand in 2008.[3]

In February 2011, MeadWestvaco sold its Envelope Products Business including the Columbian Brand Envelope to Cenveo Corporation's Quality Park Envelope Products Group.

In 2012, ACCO Brands acquired the consumer and office products businesses, including Mead, Five Star, AT-A-GLANCE, Cambridge, Day Runner, Hilroy, Tilibra, and Grafons.

Environmental record

In 2002, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have identified MeadWestvaco as the 57th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 35,000 pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air.[9] Major pollutants indicated by the study include sulfuric acid, chlorine dioxide, chlorine, and methyl iodide.[10]

MWV took steps to improve its environmental impact by upholding both mandated and voluntary performance standards. It was included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, a system that tracks the financial performance of leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. MWV met the carbon reduction targets of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world's first and North America's only legally binding rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system. It held leadership positions in and actively supports Sustainable Packaging Coalition, Cerflor, CCX, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Abundant Forests Alliance, Duke University Climate Chance Policy Partnership and Sustainable Forestry Initiative.[11]

MeadWestvaco Foundation

In 2002, MeadWestvaco established the MeadWestvaco Foundation as a vehicle to appropriately give back to the communities in which its employees live and work. The Foundation works closely with local MWV business unit managers to determine the goals, priorities, and strategies best for each location.

The Foundation’s 2007 contributions totaled roughly $3.7million. Funds were allocated to the following categories: United Way, education, environment, health & human services, culture & art, and civic organizations. MWV employees, families, and friends also contributed over 46,000 volunteer hours to schools, charitable organizations, and public institutions. [12]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Financial Statements for MeadWestvaco Corp. - Google Finance". Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  2. 1 2 "MeadWestvaco Corporation Financials | Financial information from Hoover's | 804-444-1000". Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  3. 1 2 "MWV : MeadWestvaco Becomes MWV in Global Rebranding Initiative". MWV: Press Releases. MWV. 24 March 2008. Archived from the original on 9 February 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  4. ↑ "Rock-Tenn, MeadWestvaco to merge, create packaging giant" (Press release). Reuters. 26 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "MWV: Press Releases". MWV: Press Releases. MWV. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  6. ↑ "MWV: Environmental Performance". MWV: Press Releases. MWV. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  7. ↑ MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dep't. of Revenue, 553 U.S. 16 (2008).
  8. ↑ http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008/04/07/afx4862038.html%5B%5D
  9. ↑ "PERI: Toxic 100 Air Polluters Table". Political Economy Research Institute. Archived from the original on 7 May 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  10. ↑ Toxics Release Inventory courtesy rtknet.org
  11. ↑ MWV Sustainability Overview 2007 Archived 2012-02-09 at the Wayback Machine. retrieved 12 June 2008
  12. ↑ MeadWestvaco Gives Back to Community retrieved November 16, 2008
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