Sonoco history

He came to Hartsville in 1913 from Chapel Hill.

The Major died in 1918 at the age of 81, and his son, Charles, became president of the company.Sales of the company at that time - 1918 - were $514,557, and income was $34,709.

He bought the newspaper in 1921.

By 1923, when the company changed its name to Sonoco Products Company, sales were approaching the one-million mark, and income was nearly $40,000.

Revenue exceeded $1 million for the first time in 1925, and Sonoco ended the decade with earnings of $352,000 on sales of $1.9 million.

In 1927 the company grew from one main plant in Hartsville when it acquired Forney Fiber Company of Jersey City, New Jersey.

Sales reached $1.6 million in 1930, and profits hit $200,000.

Charles Coker died in 1931 at the age of just 52, and sales had reached $1.6 million a year with income of $200,000.

New plants were set up or acquired in eight new locations, and Sonoco established a subsidiary in Canada in 1933.

Sonoco absorbed the Carolina Fiber Co. - the paper-making enterprise - in 1941, and plants were established or acquired in eight new locations, from Georgia to California.

Profits for 1949 totaled $1.1 million on sales of $13.8 million.

Sonoco looked south of the border in 1950, and expanded its international operations by forming Sonoco de Mexico, S.A. The decade of the 1950s was a period of continued growth and stability for Sonoco.

In 1957 the company acquired National Paper Co. of Georgia.

In a string of acquisitions in 1960, Sonoco launched operations in Richmond, Virginia, Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Munroe Falls, Ohio.

In 1961 Sonoco began a spiral tube operation at Ravenna, Ohio, and acquired Industrial Steel and Fibre Ltd. of Terrebonne, Quebec, and Toronto, Ontario.

1964 marked a new direction for Sonoco when the company began a business relationship with Showa Products Company of Japan.

When he moved from president to chairman of the board in 1970, sales were $125 million and income was $6.3 million.

The company set up tube operations in Puerto Rico in 1971, the same year it acquired a Richmond, California, paper mill from Western Kraft Corporation.

Further diversification occurred in 1972, when Sonoco purchased Paper Stock Dealers, Inc., and Gaston Paper Stock Co., Inc. of Statesville, North Carolina.

The company embarked on another type of new operations in 1973 by starting folding carton and fiber partitions operations in Georgia.

Coker, Charles W., The Story of Sonoco Products Company, New York: The Newcomen Society in North America, 1974.

During America's bicentennial year, 1976, Charles W. Coker, Jr., became the company's chief executive officer.

The company established Sonoco Containers of Puerto Rico in 1978.

Sonoco made the Fortune 500 list for the first time in 1981.

The following year, 1982, was one of numerous acquisitions.

In 1983 Sonoco opened a second plastic bag production site in Santa Monica, California.

Sonoco added a new product to its roster in 1984, when the company began producing plastic motor oil bottles.

In 1986 the company acquired the West German Ka-Ro Werke and the South Carolina-based American Ka-Ro, producers of plastic tubes and cones.

1987 saw the acquisition of the Consumer Packaging Division of Boise Cascade, then the nation’s largest producer of composite cans.

In 1988 Sonoco completed construction of its Packaging Development Center in Hartsville and purchased Gunther, S.A., and its subsidiaries, French producers of paperboard, tubes, cores, cones, and protective packaging.

Another merger occurred in 1989, when Sonoco joined its Petroleum Products Division with the Graham Container Corp. of York, Pennsylvania, a manufacturer of plastic bottles, to form Sonoco Graham Co.

Sonoco owned 40 percent of the new company, but by 1990 wanted to sell its share for $60 million.

Sonoco eventually sold its 40 percent interest back to Graham in 1991.

——, “Sonoco to Acquire German Tube Manufacturer,” PR Newswire, November 25, 1992.

Sonoco diversified further in 1993 with the completion of two significant acquisitions.

Sonoco followed up the purchase of the Engraph flexible packaging business with the 1995 purchase of the Edinburgh, Indiana, plant of Hargro Flexible Packaging Corporation.

Acquisitions continued in 1996 with the purchase of Specialty Packaging Group, Inc., of Wausau, Wisconsin, a regional producer of composite cans, plastic and metal closures for composite and metal cans, and fiber tubes with five plants and around $38 million in annual sales.

Sales for 1997 were $2.8 billion, and net income was about $175 million.

In another important divestment, Sonoco in early 1998 sold its industrial containers business, which produced fiber barrels and plastic barrels for shipping a range of products, to Grief Bros.

In August 1999, its centennial year, the company acquired the composite can business of Crown Cork & Seal Company, Inc., gaining plants in Massillon, Ohio, and Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

In the meantime, of the several acquisitions completed during this period, the most significant was the purchase of Phoenix Packaging Corporation completed in September 2001.

The company further slimmed down in late 2003 by selling its high-density film business, which produced plastic grocery bags and agricultural film, to an investment group for $119 million.

Diversification to attain this goal remained on the agenda in consumer packaging, with acquisitions playing a key role. Thus, in May 2004, Sonoco completed one of its most significant acquisitions of this period, the $250 million purchase of Statesville, North Carolina-based CorrFlex Graphics, LLC, one of the leading producers of point-of-purchase displays in the United States.

When Charlie Coker reached Sonoco’s mandatory retirement age of 72 in May 2005, DeLoach added the chairmanship to his duties and became the first company chairman to come from outside the Coker family.

Sonoco initially owned 64.5 percent of this venture, but in 2006 it acquired full control by buying out Ahlstrom’s interest.

The company remained on track during the first half of 2007, completing another significant acquisition in plastics packaging.