RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry, announced Roger Stone as the keynote speaker and recipient of the "Lifetime Achievement Award" for his leadership in the restructuring of the North American corrugated packaging industry. The keynote address and award will be presented at RISI's 2014 International Containerboard Conference"Global Opportunities for North America's Virgin Fiber Containerboard Industry."
The conference will be held November 5-7,2014 in Chicago, IL at the Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown/Lakefront hotel. The event will feature leading industry speakers discussing major trends in North America and global markets affecting the containerboard and corrugated box industry. Topics include the outlook for supply and demand, OCC costs, the economics of conversion and trends in corrugated packaging and what's happening in global markets
During his nearly 60-year career, Stone built three major companies in the North American containerboard/corrugated box industry.
After becoming CEO of Stone Container in 1979, he expanded the then medium size company--started by his grandfather in 1928 brokering twine and wrapping paper-- into the world's largest producer of containerboard and boxes through a string of bold acquisitions from 1983-89.
The acquisitions included Continental Group in 1983, Champion International's linerboard and kraft paper operations in 1986, Southwest Forest in 1987, and Consolidated-Bathurst in 1989. The deals also took the company into other sectors such as boxboard, market pulp and newsprint as sales reached $5 billion/yr. But with a growing debt load and slow economy, the company merged into Jefferson Smurfit in November 1998 to form Smurfit-Stone Container (SSCC).
Within several months of the merger closing, Stone and son-in-law Matt Kaplan left and soon began building Box USA which grew into a company with 26 converting plants and one mill and an interest in another, before being sold to International Paper (IP) in 2004.
Stone built his latest company KapStone from a $180 million investment in 2005 into the fifth largest North American containerboard producer and largest kraft paper supplier after last year's $1 billion acquisition of Longview Fibre Paper & Packaging. That deal followed acquisition of assets from IP, MeadWestvaco and US Corrugated.
Analysts are estimating KapStone will grow earnings this year by 54% on a 34% increase in sales to around $2.3 billion, helped by the Longview acquisition which expanded the company nationally from the East to the West Coast.
"It's really great to see Roger's success with his latest company," one analyst commented. "Through his career he has shown immense skill at buying assets below replacement cost, improving cash flow to pay down debt, and then making further acquisitions."
"He was one of the first to see the industry's need for consolidation to improve financial performance," another analyst commented. "Now most containerboard companies are consistently earning their cost of capital for the first time."
