Casella Divests Massachusetts Assets

Casella Waste Systems, Inc. announced that it has sold its Rochester, Mass., construction and demolition debris transfer station; its Sandwich, Mass., transfer station; and its Cape Cod, Mass., hauling assets and related equipment to United Waste Management, Inc. for about $7.8 million in proceeds.

"Our goal is to divest $25 million of non-contributing, non-strategic assets to help de-lever the balance sheet by the end of the calendar year," says John Casella, chairman and CEO of Casella. "With the sale of the Cape Cod assets, we have achieved approximately $11.1 million of total divestiture proceeds thus far -- significant progress towards our objective."

"The Cape Cod assets were low margin businesses, and we believe that we had limited opportunity to materially improve asset performance in these markets," Casella adds. "In addition, these assets are not critical to the municipal solid waste conversion and ramp-up of the Southbridge Landfill. Moving forward, we will focus our efforts in central Massachusetts, with the goal of improving vertical integration into the Southbridge Landfill."