Cards makes second April acquisition

Cards Holdings Inc., Springdale, Arkansas, has acquired Chelsea, Oklahoma-based Johns Refuse LLC, which provides residential and commercial services in the greater Tulsa, Oklahoma, market.

The purchase of Johns marks the second acquisition in seven days for Cards, strengthening its permanent business portfolio and extending its operations westward. Earlier in April, the company purchased Muskogee, Oklahoma-based Whittinghill Disposal Services, a key competitor in the commercial and industrial waste hauling services sector.

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The purchase of Johns moves Cards into Tulsa’s backyard and further bridges the gap between newly acquired Whittinghill Disposal Services, northwest Arkansas, northeast Oklahoma and the Arkansas River Valley.

The Johns acquisition adds more than 7,000 customers, 5,000 containers, 10 trucks and 12 employees to Cards.

“Johns service offerings, employee workforce, growth strategy and equipment standards were a match made in heaven for us,” Cards CEO Dan Christensen says. “This is a first-class, turnkey operation with exceptional top-down leadership. John and Gloria Lewis are some of the finest human beings you will encounter, and it’s portrayed from the supervisors to the front-line workers.”

The newly acquired territory will expand three service lines: frontload commercial, industrial roll-off and portables restroom offerings to Johns’ existing customer base.

Crystal Miller, head of business development at Johns, says, “Our phone has been ringing constantly since we’ve announced this to our customer base. We’ve signed over 200 customers in two weeks, I cannot believe the response we’ve received thus far.”

This acquisition was made possible through a capital investment made by Kinderhook Industries that was announced in March. At that time, Sam Keenan, a principal at Kinderhook, said, “The market dynamics of the Mid-South region are incredibly appealing. Cards’ core geography is experiencing strong population growth driven by increased commercial and industrial production. We plan to hit the ground running and anticipate rapidly deploying capital ... to grow the team and invest in collection and postcollection infrastructure.” 

“These key acquisitions are such an important part to our growth strategy,” Christensen says. “You don’t find many opportunities to plug and play like we have here. I’m extremely excited about the talent we’ve acquired and how they will elevate our leadership on the go forward.”