Casella Waste Systems expands through acquisition

Casella Waste Systems Inc., headquartered in Rutland, Vermont, has acquired all the outstanding stock of Complete Disposal Co. Inc. and its subsidiary, United Material Management of Holyoke Inc., for a total consideration of up to $16.5 million. The acquisition closed Jan. 2, 2018.

Additionally, Casella acquired the commercial and residential collection assets from a hauler in Vermont for a total consideration of up to $1.8 million Dec. 29, 2017.

Casella Waste Systems provides solid waste management services consisting of collection, transfer, disposal and recycling in the northeastern United States. 

"In early August 2017, we announced to the market our updated long-term strategic plan through 2021," says John W. Casella, chairman and CEO of Casella Waste Systems. "As part of this new 2021 plan, and as a result of the recent success of our focus on reducing risk and improving our balance sheet, we are now able to begin to use our capital in a manner that balances continued delivering with smart acquisition and development growth." 

Casella says his company has set a goal to spend $20 million to $40 million annually on acquisition or development activity as part of the company’s strategic plan. “We believe that the acquisition of Complete and of this most-recent small tuck-in acquisition puts us on track to meet our acquisition target in 2018,” he adds.

Complete is an integrated solid waste services provider serving the greater Holyoke, Massachusetts, market. The company provides residential and roll-off collection services, operates a construction and demolition processing facility and operates a 750-ton-per-day solid waste transfer station with truck and rail transfer capabilities. Complete is expected to generate approximately $17 million in revenue in 2018, Casella says.

"As we have laid out over the last several quarters, given the continued tightening of the disposal markets across the northeast due to permanent facility closures and increased economic activity, coupled with changes in the recycling markets, we believe that we have an excellent opportunity to acquire select assets across our market areas," Casella continues. 

"We expect that investing a portion of our excess cash flows to grow our business will create additional shareholder returns through higher cash flow growth rates driven by new revenue streams, internalization to our disposal facilities and cost synergies," he says.   

Regarding the Complete acquisition, Casella says it is “a great strategic fit with our operations and long-term plan. With this acquisition, we are entering a new adjacent market in western Massachusetts, enhancing our construction and demolition capabilities with a state-of-the-art processing facility and adding rail and truck transfer capabilities in the western Massachusetts marketplace that will see another 0.8 million tons of landfill capacity permanently close in 2018.”

He adds that the company expects to begin internalizing volumes from this new market to its western New York landfills that have excess annual capacity this year.