Georgia-Pacific LLC

Who owns Georgia-Pacific?
Georgia-Pacific is wholly owned by Koch, Inc., the private Wichita, Kansas conglomerate formerly called Koch Industries. Koch acquired it in December 2005 for about $21 billion including debt.

Is Georgia-Pacific publicly traded?
No. It was publicly traded until the 2005 Koch acquisition took it private. It issues no public financial reports, so revenue figures are estimates.

Where is Georgia-Pacific headquartered?
Georgia-Pacific is headquartered at Georgia-Pacific Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and operates more than 150 facilities, mostly in North America.

What brands does Georgia-Pacific own?
Its consumer brands include Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Brawny, Dixie, Sparkle, Vanity Fair, and Mardi Gras, plus enMotion commercial systems. It also makes Dens gypsum panels, plywood, lumber, packaging, and cellulose.

Who is the CEO of Georgia-Pacific?
David Duncan became president and CEO in March 2026. He is a 28-year Koch veteran who previously led Georgia-Pacific's consumer products group. He succeeded Christian Fischer, who retired in October 2025.

How many employees does Georgia-Pacific have?
Georgia-Pacific employs approximately 30,000 people directly across more than 150 locations, with an estimated 89,000 additional indirect jobs supported by its operations.

Owen Robertson Cheatham founded the Georgia Hardwood Lumber Company in Augusta, Georgia, in 1927, buying and reselling hardwood. Renamed Georgia-Pacific in 1948, it spent the post-war decades consolidating Southern timber and plywood into a lumber and building products giant headquartered in Atlanta from the 1970s.

Acquisition built the consumer business. The company moved into tissue through the 1980s and 1990s, then made the transformational buys of Fort Howard in 2000 and Fort James in 2001, which brought Quilted Northern, Brawny, Dixie, and related brands. Those deals shifted Georgia-Pacific from a lumber company toward consumer paper products.

Koch Industries acquired the company in December 2005 for $48 per share, about $13.2 billion in cash plus assumed debt, a roughly $21 billion transaction that took it private. Under Koch, the company invested in mill modernization, expanded packaging and cellulose, and kept building products as a third leg.

Christian Fischer led the company from 2017 until his retirement in October 2025, a tenure marked by automation investment and consumer product upgrades. After an interim period under Koch executive Mark Luetters, David Duncan, a 28-year Koch veteran who had run the consumer products group, was named president and CEO in March 2026. The company acquired food packaging maker Anchor Packaging in late 2025.

Georgia-Pacific runs a stewardship program covering sustainable forestry, recycling, emissions, and water, sourcing fiber under certified forestry standards and operating one of the nation's largest recycling businesses. It reports progress through Koch-level ESG disclosure.

Pulp and paper are resource intensive, so its environmental posture is inherently mixed: mills consume energy and water and have faced periodic regulatory actions on emissions and discharge. The company's recycling operations and certified sourcing are its strongest credentials.

Georgia-Pacific has been named to Forbes' America's Best Large Employers list and recognized for military and veteran hiring. Its facilities have earned industry safety recognition, and its brands rank among the most purchased household paper products nationally.

The company's most significant legacy issue is asbestos liability from joint compound and gypsum products made decades ago, a liability that has required substantial reserves and ongoing settlements since before the Koch acquisition.

Environmental enforcement over mill emissions and wastewater has produced periodic fines and consent agreements at individual facilities, standard for the sector. As a Koch subsidiary it also receives indirect scrutiny over the parent company's political and environmental record.