Georgia-Pacific LLC is an American pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the world's largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, toilet and paper towel dispensers, packaging, building products and related chemicals. As of Fall 2019, the company employed more than 35,000 people at more than 180 locations in North America, South America and Europe. It is an independently operated and managed subsidiary of Koch Industries.
History
Georgia-Pacific was founded by Owen Robertson Cheatham on September 22, 1927 in Augusta, Georgia, as the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Co. Over the years it expanded, adding sawmills and plywood plants. The company acquired its first West Coast facility in 1947 and changed its name to Georgia-Pacific Plywood & Lumber Company in 1948. In 1956, the company changed its name to Georgia-Pacific Corporation. In 1957 the company entered the pulp and paper business by building a kraft pulp and linerboard mill at Toledo, Oregon. The company continued to make a series of acquisitions, including US Plywood in 1987, Great Northern Nekoosa in 1990, and the Fort James Corporation in 2000. The Fort James Corporation was the result of a series of mergers of enterprises that included the Fort Howard Corporation, the James River Corporation and Crown-Zellerbach. In August 2001, Georgia-Pacific completed the sale of four un-coated paper mills and their associated businesses and assets to Canadian papermaker Domtar for .
It was announced on November 13, 2005 that Georgia-Pacific would be acquired by Koch Industries. On December 23, 2005, Koch Industries finalized the $21 billion acquisition of Georgia-Pacific. Georgia-Pacific was removed from the NYSE (it had traded under the symbol GP) and shareholders surrendered their shares for about $48 per share.
The Georgia-Pacific Tower in Atlanta continues to house the company's headquarters. The Crown Zellerbach Building was built as the headquarters of Crown Zellerbach in San Francisco in 1959.
On January 11, 2010, Georgia-Pacific signed an agreement to acquire Grant Forest Products' oriented strand board ("OSB") facility at Englehart, Ontario and the associated facility at Earlton, Ontario, as well as its OSB facilities at Clarendon and Allendale, South Carolina, for approximately $400 million. The transaction closed in July 2013, following Canadian regulatory review and US court approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino merger review process.
On June 19, 2014, Georgia-Pacific announced it will acquire SPG Holdings. In 2018, Georgia-Pacific's facilities in Taylorsville, Mississippi were the site of a two-week labor strike.
Brand names
Georgia-Pacific operates under many different brand names. Angel Soft and Quilted Northern are toilet paper and facial tissue brands. Blue Ribbon, Clutter Cutter, DensArmor Plus, DensDeck, DensGlass, DensShield, DryPly, FireGuard, GP Lam, Hushboard, Nautilus, Ply-Bead, Plytanium, Southern Gold, Sta-Strait, Thermostat, ToughRock, Wood I Beam, and XJ 85 are building and remodeling brands. Sparkle and Brawny are paper towel brands. Mardi Gras and Vanity Fair are napkin brands. Dixie Insulair, PerfecTouch, and Ultra are tableware brands. Advantage, Image Plus, and Spectrum are office paper brands.
Discontinued brands include Soft n' Gentle (toilet paper), Zee (napkins and paper towels), and Mardi Gras-branded paper towels. The toilet paper, paper towel, and napkin brands are sold in different price segments, with the Angel Soft, Sparkle, and Mardi Gras brands being more value-priced and the Quilted Northern, Brawny, and Vanity Fair brands being premium offerings.
Environmental record
Stephen Engelberg of The New York Times wrote that in 1995, Georgia-Pacific persuaded the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to approve an amendment that derailed a pending E.P.A. investigation of Weyerhauser Company, Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, and Georgia-Pacific, arguing that the E.P.A. was "unfairly applying present-day standards to decisions made 10 to 15 years ago", and that the E.P.A. test method overstated the emissions from wood products factories. Georgia-Pacific's opponents believed "the measure could allow Georgia-Pacific avoid installing pollution gear at many of its plants." Engelberg wrote, "Nonetheless, [Georgia-Pacific] said they would install controls at plants that need them."