Investor Presentaiton

26 NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES ADJUSTED EARNINGS PER DILUTED SHARE We use the non-GAAP financial measure "adjusted earnings per diluted share," also referred to as "adjusted earnings per share" or "Adjusted EPS", because we believe this measure provides our board of directors, investors, potential investors, securities analysts and others with useful information to evaluate our performance since it excludes restructuring and other costs and other specific items that we believe are not indicative of our ongoing operating results. Our management and board of directors use this information to evaluate our performance relative to other periods. We believe the most directly comparable GAAP measure is Earnings per diluted share. ADJUSTED OPERATING CASH FLOW AND ADJUSTED FREE CASH FLOW We use the non-GAAP financial measures "adjusted operating cash flow" and "adjusted free cash flow" because we believe these measures provide our board of directors, investors, potential investors, securities analysts and others with useful information to evaluate our performance relative to other periods because they exclude certain cash restructuring and other costs, net of tax that we believe are not indicative of our ongoing operating results. We believe adjusted free cash flow provides greater comparability across periods by excluding capital expenditures. We believe the most directly comparable GAAP measure is net cash provided by operating activities. CONSOLIDATED ADJUSTED EBITDA AND CONSOLIDATED ADJUSTED EBITDA MARGINS We use the non-GAAP financial measures "Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA" and "Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA margins", along with other factors, to evaluate our performance against our peers. We believe that board of directors, investors, potential investors, securities analysts and others use these measures to evaluate our performance relative to our peers. Management believes that the most directly comparable GAAP measure to "Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA" (formerly referred to as Adjusted Segment EBITDA) is "Net income attributable to common stockholders". It can also be derived by adding together each segment's "Adjusted EBITDA❞ plus "Non-allocated expenses". "Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA Margins" is calculated as "Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA" divided by Net Sales. LEVERAGE RATIO, NET LEVERAGE RATIO, TOTAL FUNDED DEBT AND ADJUSTED TOTAL FUNDED DEBT We use the non-GAAP financial measures "leverage ratio" and "net leverage ratio" as measurements of our operating performance and to compare to our publicly disclosed target leverage ratio. We believe our board of directors, investors, potential investors, securities analysts and others use each measure to evaluate our available borrowing capacity - in the case of "net leverage ratio", adjusted for cash and cash equivalents. We define leverage ratio as our Total Funded Debt divided by our Credit Agreement EBITDA, each of which term is defined in our credit agreement, dated July 1, 2015. Borrowing capacity under our credit agreement depends on, in addition to other measures, the Credit Agreement Debt/EBITDA ratio or the leverage ratio. As of December 31, 2021, our leverage ratio was 2.50 times. While the leverage ratio under our credit agreement determines the credit spread on our debt, we are not subject to a leverage ratio cap. Our credit agreement is subject to a Debt to Capitalization and Consolidated Interest Coverage Ratio, as defined therein. We define "Adjusted Total Funded Debt❞ as our Total Funded Debt less cash and cash equivalents. Net Leverage Ratio is the product of Adjusted Total Funded Debt divided by our Credit Agreement EBITDA. As of December 31, 2021, our net leverage ratio was 2.40 times. ADJUSTED NET DEBT We believe "adjusted net debt" provides WestRock's board of directors, investors, potential investors, securities analysts and others with useful information to evaluate WestRock's repayment of debt relative to other periods because it includes or excludes certain items management believes are not comparable from period to period. We believe adjusted net debt provides greater comparability across periods by adjusting for cash and cash equivalents, as well as fair value of debt step-up included in Total Debt that is not subject to debt repayment. WestRock believes that the most directly comparable GAAP measure is "Total Debt" which is derived from the current portion of debt and long-term debt due after one year. FORWARD-LOOKING GUIDANCE We are not providing a reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure because we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty the ultimate outcome of certain significant items without unreasonable effort. These items include, but are not limited to, merger and acquisition-related expenses, restructuring expenses, asset impairments, litigation settlements, changes to contingent consideration and certain other gains or losses. These items are uncertain, depend on various factors, and could have a material impact on U.S. GAAP reported results for the guidance period. In addition, we have not quantified future amounts to develop our leverage ratio target but have stated our commitment to an investment grade credit profile in order to generally maintain the target. This target does not reflect Company guidance. WestRock

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