Westrock's

We operate in a challenging global marketplace and compete with many large, well established and highly competitive manufacturers and service providers. Our business is affected by a range of macroeconomic conditions, including industry capacity changes, global competition, economic conditions in the U.S. and abroad, as well as fluctuations in currency exchange rates.

The industries we operate in are highly competitive, and no single company dominates any of those industries. Our paperboard and containerboard operations compete with integrated and non-integrated national and regional companies operating primarily in North America, and to a limited extent, manufacturers outside of North America. Our competitors include large and small, vertically integrated companies and numerous smaller non-integrated companies. In the corrugated packaging and folding and beverage carton markets, we compete with a significant number of national, regional and local packaging suppliers in North America and abroad. Our dispensing operations compete globally with manufacturers for global end markets. In the solid fiber interior packaging, promotional point-of-purchase display and converted paperboard products markets, we primarily compete with a smaller number of national, regional and local companies offering highly specialized products. Our recycled fiber brokerage and collection operations compete with various other companies for the procurement and supply of recovered paper, including brokers and companies that export recovered paper to international markets. The Land and Development segment competes in the real estate sales and development market in the Charleston, SC region.

Because all of our businesses operate in highly competitive industry segments, we regularly bid for sales opportunities to customers for new business or for renewal of existing business. Our packaging products compete with packaging made from other materials. The primary competitive factors we face include price, design, product innovation, quality and service, with varying emphasis on these factors depending on the product line and customer preferences. We believe that we compete effectively with respect to each of these factors and we evaluate our performance with annual customer surveys, among other means.

The businesses we operate in have undergone consolidation. Within the packaging products industry, larger customers, with an expanded geographic presence, have tended to seek suppliers who can, because of their broad geographic presence, efficiently and economically supply all or a range of their packaging needs. In addition, our customers continue to demand higher quality products meeting stricter quality control requirements.