Dive Brief:
- Louisville, KY-based Industrial Services of America Inc. (ISA) has sold the waste services portion of its business for $7.5 million in cash. The scrap recycler, who has not disclosed the buyer’s name, will use the money to pay back debt.
- The sale includes the majority of ISA’s commercial, retail, and industrial waste and recycling services business assets, as well as its commercial equipment sales, rental, and maintenance business.
- ISA, founded in 1954 as one of the first publicly traded waste and recycling businesses in the U.S., generated $117.4 million in revenue in 2014 and ranked 30th on the Waste100 listing of North America’s largest waste and recycling companies, as reported in Waste360.
Dive Insight:
These are tough times for scrap metal recyclers, with companies in North Carolina, Chicago, and elsewhere filing for bankruptcy or shutting down.
"Following a very challenging year in the metal commodity markets, the company believes the sale of our Waste Services segment is a critical step in positively positioning the company for future growth and opportunity," said ISA President Sean Garber.
Although the scrap metal market carries unpredictability, some industry experts say they are not expecting an upturn in the scrap metal market until 2017.
“It’s a cyclical market. No one can really see where the bottom’s at," said David Cauble, vice president of Cimco Recycling in Milwaukee, in November.
