Sonoco completes portfolio transformation

The week of Feb. 16, Sonoco Products Co. released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings and announced the competition of its portfolio transformation, which included leadership and business restructuring.

“Sonoco has transformed over the last several years to create a more focused, simplified business,” CEO Howard Coker said during an Investor Day event Feb. 17. “This focus allows us to move faster, allocate capital with greater discipline and hold ourselves accountable for returns.”

The Hartsville, South Carolina-based packaging company has simplified its consumer packaging segment by combining its global metal packaging and consumer packaging segments into a single unit, divided geographically. In 2026, Sonoco will report results in two segments: consumer packaging and industrial paper packaging, with its industrial plastics packaging segment included in industrial paper packaging.

“Focusing management attention, capital and resources on fewer but [larger] scale businesses, we have a strong competitive advantage,” Coker said.

“Significant prior investments in our operations, systems and people position us to drive improved profitability. Our streamlined portfolio, supported by our proven operating model, enables accelerated margin expansion and consistent earnings growth. We focus on [the] essential center of the store food categories and partner with large growing brands and private label customers.”

Coker highlighted that in 2020, 42 percent of Sonoco’s sales came from consumer packaging, while 44 percent was industrial and the remainder was from a range of diversified businesses.

The company since has shifted its mix purposefully to more consumer-focused packaging, where it currently generates more than two-thirds of its sales in paper and metal and one-third in uncoated recycled paperboard and converted products.

“During our transformation, we followed a set of principles that helped us determine what markets we would participate in and how we expect to win,” Coker said. “We focused on value-added packaging where we can drive a competitive advantage to advanced material science and technology expertise, where our products possess high functionality and where we can best leverage continuous process manufacturing to drive efficiency and scale.”

He also said the objective of the transformation was to improve the quality, predictability and durability of Sonoco’s earnings and cash flow over the long term and, in that objective, the company increased investment in technology and innovation in its core operations.

“By the end of our journey, we reduced a number of our highly diversified businesses from 20 to two core segments, and we simplified our operating systems and concentrated our resources where we could best drive profitable growth,” Coker said. “Today, our foundation is set, and the transformation of our portfolio is complete.”

Financial results

Sonoco saw boosted profits in the fourth quarter of 2025 as well as for the full year.

The company’s fourth-quarter net sales were $1.8 billion, up nearly 30 percent from the fourth quarter of 2024—primarily from acquisition activity—while its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were up 10.2 percent.

For the full year, Sonoco’s net sales were up nearly 42 percent, coming in at $7.5 billion in 2025 compared with $5.3 billion in 2024, while full-year adjusted EBITDA was $1.3 billion in 2025 compared with $1.03 billion in 2024, a 28 percent increase.

Net sales and adjusted EBITDA in Sonoco’s consumer segment increased in the fourth quarter and full year, while those figures were flat to down slightly in the industrial segment and down in the segment that reports all other activities.

Sonoco’s full earnings report can be found online.