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A large green truck with a GFL logo drives alongside a harbor.

GFL

www.gflenv.com
Region:North America
Sector:Services & Industrials
Investment Year:2018
Transaction Value:CAD 5,136.4m

Both

Largest privately-held and overall no.4 Environmental Services company in North America.

BCEC X invested in GFL Environmental Inc. in May 2018.

GFL Environmental Inc. is a leading North American provider of diversified environmental solutions. GFL is the only major diversified environmental services company in North America offering services in solid waste management, liquid waste management and infrastructure development.

GFL operates across Canada and in 20 states in the United States, with over 9,000 employees providing local service to approximately 4 million households under municipal contracts, and more than 135,000 industrial, commercial and institutional customers.

Investment Thesis

  • Uniquely positioned to win in an attractive market: Operates in a highly stable, predictable environmental service market which has delivered consistent growth. Sticky long term contracts, high barriers to entry, and significant scale advantages; vertical integration of strategic assets protects profitability relative to disposal costs.
  • Diversified business model: Diversified geographically and across waste management value chain, with no customer account concentration. Diversification has increased as a result of continued tuck‐in acquisitions.
  • Meaningful consolidation opportunity: Strong runway to continue accretive acquisitions across highly fragmented market base. Completed transformative Waste Industries (WI) transaction to create the 4th largest environmental solutions business in North America, and continues to undertake accretive tuck-in acquisitions. The acquisition pipeline remains strong in Canada and the USA.
  • Operational value creation: Significant value creation opportunities, specifically in the areas of pricing, procurement, and organisational efficiency with a Value Creation Roadmap (VCR) in place and synergies realisation on track, with potential upside.
  • Exceptional entrepreneurial management team: Committed, ambitious, dynamic management team led by exceptional entrepreneur and with deep bench of industry experience and supported by a strong team from both WI and GFL.
  • Exit optionality and upside: Company remains attractive to either IPO, exit to financial buyers, or sell to a strategic. Comparable companies continue to trade at attractive multiples.

Company news

Team Involved

  • Paolo Notarnicola

    Partner, Private Equity, Co-head of Services, Member of the Management Committee

  • Lisa Sibenac

    Managing Director, Portfolio Operations

  • Raymond Svider

    Chairman of BC Partners, Chairman of the Management Committee

The case studies are presented herein for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decision making. This information is being furnished for the sole purpose of providing information about BC Partners. The specific investments identified are not representative of all of the companies purchased, sold or recommended for BC Partners' private equity funds, and it should not be assumed that investments identified were or will be profitable or are representative of investments that will be made by BC Partners in the future. Unless otherwise indicated, information with respect to the investments included herein has been obtained from the relevant portfolio company. Past performance of any BC Partners-sponsored fund, vehicle, account, or investment is not indicative of future performance. There can be no assurance that BC Partners will make comparable or equally successful investments in the future. For a list of all investments made by the private equity funds managed by BC Partners since its inception, please click here.