Dive Brief:
- Pennsylvania-based Clean Earth Inc. has acquired EWS Alabama Inc., expanding the company's waste management operations into the Southeast.
- EWS handles both hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste for roughly 250 customers from 11 states. With this acquisition, Clean Earth now gains new capabilities such as recycling carbon black, utilizing fuel blending and processing medical waste.
- Compass Diversified Holdings, Clean Earth's parent company, funded the deal through a draw on its revolving credit facility. New York-based firm Acquest International was the exclusive financial advisor to Clean Earth for this acquisition.
Dive Insight:
Clean Earth handles contaminated soils, dredge material, drill cuttings, hazardous waste and consumer commodities with a 98% beneficial reuse rate for everything it processes. The company was recently ranked 25th on the Waste 100 List of 2016 and has been looking for growth opportunities since it was purchased by Compass in 2014.
Acquest International advised AES Environmental Services during its acquisition by Clean Earth, which was finalized last year. This was seen as an especially valuable move because AES had a permitted RCRA Part B hazardous waste facility, which can be hard to come by. After this, Acquest began searching for similar opportunities and found that EWS had its own permitted facility in Alabama. Official conversations began early this year, an offer was made in April and the deal was officially closed on June 2.
"States aren't issuing more of these permits," Pauli Overdorff, managing director of Acquest, told Waste Dive. "Getting two good size hazardous waste permits in two different states is really strategic."
Overdorff said the EWS facility was especially appealing because Clean Earth can now better connect its network of 14 facilities in Kentucky, Florida, Georgia and the Northeast. The company can also become more involved in expanding markets such as medical waste and strengthen its position as larger companies continue to grow through acquisitions.
