Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Public
Traded as NYSE: KMB
S&P 500 Component
Industry Personal care
Founded Neenah, Wisconsin, U.S.
(1872 (1872))
Founders
Headquarters Irving, Texas (since 1985)
Key people
 Thomas J. Falk, CEO/Chairman
Maria Henry, SVP/CFO
Products
Revenue
  • Increase $21.152 billion (2013) [1]
  • Increase $21.063 billion (2012) [1]
  • Increase $3.208 billion (2013) [1]
  • Increase $2.686 billion (2012) [1]
  • Increase $2.142 billion (2013) [1]
  • Increase $1.75 billion (2012) [1]
Total assets
  • Decrease $18.919 billion (2013) [2]
  • Increase $19.873 billion (2012) [1]
Total equity
  • Decrease $5.14 billion (2013) [2]
  • Decrease $5.287 billion (2012) [1]
Number of employees
 43,000 (December 2014)
Website www.kimberly-clark.com

Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include Kleenex facial tissue, Kotex feminine hygiene products, Cottonelle, Scott and Andrex toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, KimWipes scientific cleaning wipes, and Huggies disposable diapers.

Founded in Neenah, Wisconsin, in 1872 and based in Irving, Texas, since 1985,[3] it has approximately 43,000 employees. Kimberly-Clark UK holds Royal Warrants from Queen Elizabeth II and from the Prince of Wales in the United Kingdom. Kimberly-Clark is also listed among the Fortune 500. Subsidiaries under Kimberly-Clark include Kimberly-Clark Health Care and Kimberly-Clark Professional.[4]

History

Kimberly, Clark and Co. was founded 144 years ago in 1872 by John A. Kimberly, Havilah Babcock, Charles B. Clark, and Franklyn C. Shattuck in Neenah, Wisconsin, with $42,000 of capital.[5] The group's first business was operating paper mills, which the collective expanded throughout the following decades. The company developed cellu-cotton in 1914, a cotton substitute used by the U.S. Army as surgical cotton during World War I. Army nurses used cellu-cotton pads as disposable sanitary napkins,[6] and six years later the company introduced Kotex, the first disposable feminine hygiene product.[7] Kleenex, a disposable handkerchief, followed in 1924. Kimberly & Clark joined with The New York Times Company in 1926 to build a newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. Two years later, the company went public as Kimberly-Clark.[8]

The firm expanded internationally during the 1950s, opening plants in Mexico, West Germany, and the United Kingdom. It began operations in 17 more foreign locations in the 1960s. The company formed Midwest Express Airlines from its corporate flight department in 1984. Kimberly-Clark's headquarters moved from Neenah, Wisconsin to Irving, Texas the following year,[9] although its products are still produced in Neenah. Under the leadership of Darwin Smith as CEO from 1971 to 1991, the company went from being a business paper company to a consumer paper products company.

In 1991, Kimberly-Clark and The New York Times Company sold their jointly owned paper mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario. Kimberly-Clark entered a joint venture with Buenos Aires-based Descartables Argentinos S.A. to produce personal care products in Argentina in 1994[10] and also bought the feminine hygiene unit of VP-Schickedanz (Germany) for $123 million[11] and a 90% stake in Handan Comfort and Beauty Group (China).[12]

Kimberly-Clark bought Scott Paper in 1995 for $9.4 billion.[13] In 1997, Kimberly-Clark sold its 50% stake in Canada's Scott Paper to forest products company Kruger Inc.[14] and bought diaper operations in Spain and Portugal[15] and disposable surgical masks maker Tecnol Medical Products.[16] Augmenting its presence in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, in 1999 the company paid $365 million for the tissue business of Swiss-based Attisholz Holding.[17] Adding to its offerings of medical products, the company bought Ballard Medical Products in 1999 for $774 million[18] and examination glove maker Safeskin in 2000 for about $800 million.[19]

Also in 2000, the company bought virtually all of Taiwan's S-K Corporation; the move made Kimberly-Clark one of the largest manufacturers of consumer packaged goods in Taiwan.[20] The company later purchased Taiwan Scott Paper Corporation for about $40 million and merged the two companies, forming Kimberly-Clark Taiwan.[21] In 2001, Kimberly-Clark bought Italian diaper maker, Linostar, and announced it was closing four Latin American manufacturing plants.[22] Kimberly-Clark Sub-Saharan Africa's vision is ambitious – nothing less than turning the $250 million business into a $1 billion business by 2015.[23]

In 2002, Kimberly-Clark purchased paper-packaging rival Amcor's stake in an Australian joint venture.[24] Adding to its global consumer tissue business, in 2003 Kimberly-Clark acquired the Polish tissue-maker Klucze.[25]

In early 2004, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Falk began implementation of the global business plan the company detailed in July 2003. The firm combined its North American and European groups for personal care and consumer tissue under North Atlantic groups and was working to ensure that Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European markets were supplied, specifically in the areas of value-tiered diapers, light-end incontinence, and health care products.

Governance

Current members of the board of directors of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation are:

Relationship with Midwest Airlines

The origin of Midwest Airlines can be traced back to 1948, when the Kimberly-Clark Corporation opened its corporate flight department and began providing air transportation for company executives and engineers between the company's headquarters in Neenah, Wisconsin, and its paper mills.

In 1969, K-C Aviation was born from the company's air operations, and was dedicated to the maintenance of corporate aircraft. In 1982, K-C Aviation initiated shuttle flights for Kimberly-Clark employees between Appleton, Memphis, and Atlanta. From these experiences and considering the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, Kimberly-Clark and K-C Aviation decided to form a regularly scheduled passenger airline, and out of the initiative, Midwest Express Airlines was started on June 11, 1984.[27] The name of the airline was shortened to Midwest Airlines in 2003.

K-C Aviation divested itself from the airline in 1996. Two years later, Gulfstream Aerospace purchased K-C Aviation from Kimberly-Clark for $250 million, which included its operations at airports in Dallas, Appleton, and Westfield, Massachusetts.[28]

Environmental record

The Kimberly-Clark paper plant on the Everett, Washington, waterfront.

In 2005, Greenpeace launched the Kleercut campaign against Kimberly-Clark because the company had been linked to the logging of ancient boreal forests. The environmental organization charged that Kimberly-Clark was using more than 3 million tons of pulp a year from forests to produce tissue paper products, such as the Kleenex brand. Greenpeace led a large grassroots student activist campaign targeting Kimberly-Clark for sourcing 22% of its paper pulp from Canadian boreal forests containing 200-year-old trees.[29][30]

Greenpeace ended its campaign in August 2009, following the release of a new environmental policy by Kimberly-Clark. The two organizations announced that they were moving "away from conflict to a new collaborative relationship to further promote forest conservation, responsible forest management, and the use of recycled fiber for the manufacture of tissue products."[31]

Kimberly-Clark has a target to purchase 100% of wood fiber from suppliers that gain independent sustainability certification, with a preference for Forest Stewardship Council-certified fiber. Kimberly-Clark stated that by the end of 2010, it had achieved 98% of this target.[32]

Major U.S. consumer product lines

Cottonelle
Cottonelle hygienic paper.

Cottonelle is a brand name for bath products. Product forms include premium bath tissue and flushable moist wipe products.

Depend

Depend is a brand name for incontinence products worn by adults.

GoodNites

GoodNites are absorbent disposable underwear manufactured by Kimberly Clark (makers of Huggies Diapers and Depend Briefs) made primarily for children and teens who still wet the bed at night. They can also be used for daytime protection.

Huggies

Huggies are disposable diapers for infants and toddlers. Additional Huggies brand products include "Huggies Clean Team" products for toddlers such as shampoo, hand soap, wash mitten, etc.

Little Swimmers

Little Swimmers is a brand of disposable swim diaper.

Kleenex

Kleenex is the brand name of facial tissue paper. Many versions have been made, including with lotion, our softest ever!, and regular. In the '70s, Dr. Cody Sweet (color psychologist) was hired through Dan Edelman Public Relations to represent the newly styled and colored quadrant designed boxes of the product as national media spokesperson.

Kotex

Kotex is a feminine hygiene product line, which includes panty liners, sanitary napkins, and tampons.

Pull-Ups

Pull-Ups is a brand name of training pants for toddlers, marketed together with the Huggies brand of baby products.

Scott
Main article: Scott Paper Company

Scott is a brand name of paper napkins, paper towels, and bath tissue/wipes.

VIVA

VIVA is a brand name of heavy-duty paper towels.

Mexican consumer product lines

Includes most of the American products and these products:

Napkin Brands

Kimberly-Clark distributes a variety of napkin brands (Kleenex, Petalo, Suavel, Delsey, Lys).

Toilet paper brands
Suavel toilet paper pack

Kimberly-Clark distributes a variety of toilet paper brands (Kleenex, Petalo, Suavel, Delsey, Vogue, Lys).

KleenBebe

A baby diaperbrand name similar to Huggies. The brand is a combination of "kleen" (Kleenex) and "bebe" (Spanish for "baby").

Kimberly-Clark also has a variety of brands designed for professional markets and medical markets.

Major professional and global products

KimWipes

KimWipes are a type of cleaning tissue commonly used in laboratories. They are intended for applications where leaving lint or fibers on a surface would be undesirable, such as slides and pipettes. They are sometimes used to clean lenses as well, but use on optical lenses with special water- and solvent-based coatings may cause light blemishes, and the manufacturer recommends using a wipe specifically designed for use with coated lenses. KimWipes are composed of virgin wood pulp from certified forests, with little chemical additives.

DryNites

DryNites are a plainer, unisex version of GoodNites sold in Europe and Australasia. The sizing also differs from that of Goodnites.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "KIMBERLY CLARK CORP 2013 Annual Report Form (10-K)" (XBRL). United States Securities and Exchange Commission. February 14, 2014.
  2. 1 2 "KIMBERLY CLARK CORP 2014 Q1 Quarterly Report Form (10-Q)" (XBRL). United States Securities and Exchange Commission. April 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Form 4." Kimberly-Clark. Retrieved on November 17, 2012. "351 PHELPS DRIVE. IRVING, Texas 75038"
  4. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Health Care". www.kchealthcare.com. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  5. ↑ "Historical Journey: An Interactive Timeline". www.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
  6. ↑ Spector, Robert; Wicks, William W. (1997). "Kotex and Kleenex". Shared Values: A History of Kimberly-Clark. Lyme, CT: Greenwich Publishing Group. p. 55. ISBN 0944641172.
  7. ↑ Spector, Robert; Wicks, William W. (1997). "Kotex and Kleenex". Shared Values: A History of Kimberly-Clark. Lyme, CT: Greenwich Publishing Group. p. 56. ISBN 0944641172.
  8. ↑ Spector, Robert; Wicks, William W. (1997). "From One Kimberly to Another". Shared Values: A History of Kimberly-Clark. Lyme, CT: Greenwich Publishing Group. p. 79. ISBN 0944641172.
  9. ↑ "Kimberly Clark Heritage" (PDF). www.cms.kimberly-clark.com. p. 13. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  10. ↑ "FORM 10-Q SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  11. ↑ "FORM 10-Q SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  12. ↑ "FORM 8-K SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  13. ↑ "FORM 10-Q SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  14. ↑ "Kruger Agrees to Buy Kimberly-Clark Unit". www.wsj.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  15. ↑ "COMPANY BRIEFS". www.nytimes.com. New York Times. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  16. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark to Acquire Tecnol in Tax-Free Swap". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  17. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Completes Acquisition of European Tissue Businesses of Attisholz Holding AG". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  18. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Completes Acquisition of Ballard Medical Products". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  19. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Completes Acquisition of Safeskin Corporation". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  20. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Completes Acquisition of S-K Corporation of Taiwan". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  21. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Corporation Completes Integration of S-K Corporation and Taiwan Scott Paper Company". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  22. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Corporation". www.hoovers.com. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  23. ↑ http://www.manufacturingdigital.com/company-reports/kimberly-clark-south-africa
  24. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Completes Acquisition of K-C Australia". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  25. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark Acquires Polish Tissue Business From International Paper". investor.kimberly-clark.com. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  26. ↑ Kimberly-Clark. "Board of Directors". Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  27. ↑ Spector, Robert. Shared Values A History of Kimberly-Clark. Greenwich Publishing Group, Inc, 1997, p. 122
  28. ↑ "Gulfstream buys air services firm". Rome News-Tribune. (Georgia). Bloomberg. July 26, 1998. p. 2E.
  29. ↑ "Greenpeace's new leader talks up need for a green grassroots". Grist.org. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
  30. ↑ Schwartz, Ariel. "Exclusive: How Kimberly-Clark Ditched its Forest-Destroying Reputation and Embraced Greenpeace". Fast Company. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
  31. ↑ "Kimberly-Clark and Greenpeace agree to historic measures to protect forests". Greenpeace. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
  32. ↑ "Our Fiber Procurement Policy". Kimberly-Clark. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
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