By the numbers
Full year revenue: $1.56B
Up 23.1% year over year
Q4 adjusted EBITDA: $95M
Up 15.6% year over year
Full year adjusted EBITDA: $360.6M
Up 22.4% year over year
- Financial picture: During an earnings call on Thursday, CEO John Casella said the company “finished the year strong” with notable growth in revenue, adjusted free cash flow and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. It’s the third year in a row of adjusted EBITDA growth of over 20%, he said.
- 2024 acquisitions: The company acquired eight businesses 2024, representing over $200 million of annualized revenues. The deals are “further strengthening our operating capabilities in our mid-Atlantic markets and entering a strategically attractive adjacency in the Hudson Valley region of New York,” said Casella.
- Volumes: Solid waste volumes were down 1.8% in the quarter, and collection volume was down 0.7%. CFO Brad Helgeson said volume declines were mostly concentrated in the mid-Atlantic region, where the company continues to integrate assets it acquired from GFL Environmental in 2023. MSW landfill tons were up 4.8% in the quarter, but the company continues to experience weakness in special waste and C&D tonnages, with those streams down 11.8% year over year, he said.
- Landfill updates: Casella said he is “optimistic” that the company will see modest volume growth in 2025, due in part to the rail-served McKean Landfill coming online in Pennsylvania. The site is permitted for up to 5,000 tons per day, and President Ned Coletta said it has so far accepted about 7,500 tons since opening last year. He described the measured approach as “long-term risk management to preserve our flexibility in the disposal-constrained Northeast markets.” The company is also working to expand its Hyland Landfill in New York.
- Disposal shifts: Casella sees expanded options to internalize MSW tons after the recent acquisition of Royal Carting and Welsh Sanitation,which serve New York and Connecticut. To help increase landfill internalization in new markets, the company “purchased additional long-haul trucks and trailers, and established new transportation lanes, mainly from four markets to our New York landfills,” Coletta added.
- Recycling infrastructure: The company’s Boston MRF upgrade, completed in 2023, “performed very, very well in 2024, in fact better than expected,” Casella said. Earlier this month, the company wrapped up similar upgrades at its facility in Willimantic, Connecticut, which is expected to generate about $4 million of EBITDA in 2025. “Following a shakeout period, we expect the facility to roughly double its processing speed initially allowing us to reduce operating costs by going from two shifts to one,” added Helgeson.
- 2025 acquisitions and future M&A: Casella acquired three businesses so far in 2025 with about $40 million of annualized revenues, “filling in our service territory in Maryland and Pennsylvania and adding synergistic overlap in Eastern Massachusetts,” Casella said. The company is “very active in over 100 opportunities and roughly $700 million of revenues in various stages of diligence and development,” added Coletta.
- 2025 outlook: The company, now entering its 50th year, estimates revenues between $1.775 billion and $1.805 billion. It estimates adjusted EBITDA to be between $410 million and $425 million.
