Rutland, Vermont-based Casella Waste Systems Inc. has reported both increased revenue and increased profits in 2015 compared with 2014 results for the solid waste, recycling and resource management services company.
The company has reported revenue for its 2015 fiscal year (which coincides with the calendar year) of $546.5 million, up $20.6 million (3.9 percent) from its 2014 total. In the fourth quarter, Casella took in $140 million, up 4.9 percent from its fourth quarter 2014 receipts.
Casella Waste pegged its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, at $106.1 million for the year, up by $9.2 million (9.5 percent) from 2014. Its fourth quarter earnings of $27.8 represented a 13.8 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2014. Casella Waste also disclosed an operating Income of $30.5 million for the year, up $9.2 million (43.1 percent) from 2014.
For the fourth quarter, the company has cited “overall solid waste pricing for the quarter [that] was up 3.6 percent, mainly driven by strong residential and commercial collection pricing up 5.6 percent.”
“During fiscal year 2015, we continued to execute well against our key strategies of increasing landfill returns, improving collection route profitability, creating incremental value through resource solutions, reducing financial and operational risks and improving our balance sheet,” says John W. Casella, the company’s chairman and CEO.
He also refers to changes in the company’s recycling division as a boost to the 2015 bottom line. “We have worked hard over the last year to reshape our recycling sales model in the face of rapidly declining recycling commodity prices, with the average commodity revenue per ton down 19 percent in fiscal year 2015, resulting in an $8.8 million decline in recycling commodity revenues,” Casella says. “We have offset this decline in recycling commodity revenues through a combination of our newly implemented Sustainability/Recycling Adjustment (“SRA”) fee applied to residential and commercial hauling customers, lower rebates or higher tipping fees to recycling processing customers and efforts to reduce operating costs at our materials processing facilities. Through these efforts, we offset nearly all of this commodity price headwind and held operating income flat in the recycling line of business.”
Looking at the current fiscal year, Casella comments, “Our fiscal year 2016 budget reflects continued execution of our key strategies and we remain confident that execution in these areas will drive additional shareholder value.” In its 2015 earnings press release, the company offers targets of “between $550 million and $560 million” in revenue for 2016 and a projected EBITDA of “between $111 million and $115 million.”
It sees its recycling business in 2016 as providing “overall revenue declines of between 2 percent and 7 percent, driven by lower commodity pricing, partially offset by higher volumes."