RICHMOND, Virginia (From the Richmond Times-Dispatch) -- WestRock Co. -- the packaging giant created last year by the merger of Richmond-based MeadWestvaco Corp. and suburban Atlanta-based RockTenn Co. -- will continue to maintain a strong presence in the Richmond area, an executive with the company said Thursday.

"The Richmond location is not going anywhere," said Robert Beckler, WestRock's president of packaging solutions, in a presentation to the Richmond Association for Business Economics. The meeting was held at the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Richmond.

MeadWestvaco merged in July with RockTenn Co. of Norcross, Ga., to form WestRock, a paper and packaging company with operations in 30 countries and about $15 billion in annual revenue.

The company has described Richmond as its "principal executive office" and Norcross as its "principal operating office" in reports to shareholders. Its chief executive officer continues to work primarily in Norcross, and the company held its annual shareholders meeting in February in Atlanta.

In Richmond, WestRock occupies the downtown headquarters of the former MeadWestvaco Corp., which opened the nine-story office building at 501 S. Fifth St. overlooking the James River in 2009.

WestRock has put the top two floors in the building up for sublease, with a total of 63,673 square feet available.

"Obviously, the merger has created a movement of people to different locations -- to Richmond, away from Richmond," Beckler, who is based here, said in response to an audience question about the future of the headquarters.

"But we have well over 600 people based in the Richmond location," he said. "We are running global businesses out of Richmond. We have a portion of the senior leadership team based in Richmond, and so our intent is to be here to stay."

"Having said that, I think that the notion of a central location for a company of our size doesn't really hold anymore," he said.

"WestRock is a $15 billion company, and we have locations all around the world where we are running our operations," said Beckler, who plans to retire in July after 29 years with WestRock and MeadWestvaco, during which he held management roles in the company's specialty chemicals and packaging businesses.

"We are committed to Richmond," he said, adding that Virginia has the largest concentration of WestRock operations of any state.

The company has about 3,500 employees in Virginia, at locations including its office in Richmond, a container plant in eastern Henrico County, a paper mill in Covington, and factories in West Point, Hopewell, Martinsville and Lynchburg. Its payroll in the state amounts to about $290 million a year.