Atlantic Packaging, one of North Carolina's largest privately held companies, headquartered in Wilmington, announced this week that its management is awarding $1,000 bonuses immediately to full-time employees. Nearly 1,000 Atlantic employees will receive the bonus payment by Feb. 15, 2018.

"We are a Sub-S Corporation," said Wes Carter, Atlantic president, "and although the new tax bill did not reduce our taxes as aggressively as it did for C-Corps, some of whom are our competitors, the tax reduction will have a real impact and we want to share the savings with our hard working and loyal employees.

"Our people are what make this organization successful and, though the tax benefit will not come until the end of 2018, we are distributing the bonus dollars now to acknowledge its impact," he said. "The new tax code helps U.S. companies remain healthy and competitive in a global marketplace, and that directly and positively affects the people who work at these companies."

Atlantic is a distributor of packaging materials and automated equipment and operates manufacturing facilities for paper converting, printing, and labeling products. With 16 locations throughout the U.S., including one in the Dominican Republic and one in Honduras, Atlantic Packaging employs more than 1,000 workers.

Atlantic's original location is in Tabor City, N.C., and the company operates locally from its corporate headquarters on 23rd St. in Wilmington. 

"Interestingly," says CEO Rusty Carter, "the part of the new tax code dealing with repatriation of off shore earnings has additional benefit for our company, given our non-U.S. operations. Accordingly, we are also paying this bonus to our 150 off shore employees. We are probably not unique in this situation nationwide, but we are likely unique for privately held North Carolina companies."

Atlantic's domestic locations in North Carolina are in Wilmington, Tabor City, Raleigh, Greensboro, Hickory, and Charlotte. South Carolina locations are in Greenville and Charleston. They also have branch locations in Atlanta and Dalton, Ga.; Dallas, Texas; Sturgis, Mich.; Hazleton, Pa.; and Memphis, Tenn. Off shore locations are in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic; and Choloma, Honduras.

Atlantic was founded in 1946 in Tabor City, N.C., by W.H. Carter, father and grandfather of Rusty and Wes. The company began as a small-town newspaper where the elder Carter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for his fight for social and economic justice through his editorial campaign against the KKK. He launched the beginnings of the current packaging company in the 1960's.

Carter's newspaper, the Tabor City Tribune, is still published weekly and Tabor City is Atlantic's largest concentration of employees, exceeding 300, making it Columbus County's largest non-government employer.

  

More information about Atlantic Packaging is available online.