Clean Earth

August 2014

Acquisition date

$251M

Purchase price

5

Years held

June 2019

Divesture Date

$625M

Sale price

Clean Earth is a provider of environmental services including de-characterization, remediation, disposal, recycling, and beneficial reuse for hazardous and non-hazardous wastes, contaminated soil, wastewater and dredged material. Clean Earth serves a variety of industries including infrastructure, chemical, utilities, industrial, commercial, retail, and healthcare markets.

Competitive Strengths

Market share leader
Significant portfolio of regulatory permits, processing knowledge and equipment
Benefits from strengthening and enforcement of environmental regulation
Increasing waste disposal costs and landfill avoidance trends
Strong management team; average tenure of approximately 10 years

Value Creation

Worked with management to execute an aggressive add-on acquisition strategy, repositioning the company’s end markets and customer base while broadening its facility footprint and permit portfolio.
Completed accretive add-ons of seven environmental services providers, representing approximately $100 million of annual revenue and expanding the Company’s footprint from 12 to 27 fixed facilities across the United States
- Transformed revenue mix from primarily soil to majority hazardous waste treatment, which is higher margin, more programmatic and less indexed to macroeconomic fluctuations
- Shifted contaminated materials end markets from primarily commercial to majority infrastructure
- Developed advanced reporting and analytical systems to manage operational integration and track performance of the add-ons
Successfully targeted fragmented hazardous waste treatment market, acquiring 8 valuable RCRA Part B permits to expand processing capacity and capabilities (no new commercial Part B permits issued in over 30 years)
Deployed capital through proprietary transactions at accretive valuations in a high-multiple environment

CODI has been an ideal partner, providing hands-on support, outstanding guidance and growth capital to enable Clean Earth to best take advantage of attractive opportunities. I would like to thank CODI for their patient approach and commitment to invest in our business, driving growth and further strengthening Clean Earth’s brand, industry leadership and financial performance. The momentum that they helped create will provide us with a strong platform for the future.

Chris Dods

CEO, Clean Earth

Divestiture

In June 2019, CODI completed the 100% sale of Clean Earth to Harsco Corporation (NYSE: HSC), a provider of industrial services and engineered products, for $625 million.

Our success capitalizing on organic growth opportunities and completing a number of compelling add-on acquisitions enabled Clean Earth to meaningfully expand its geographic footprint, processing capabilities and extensive service offerings, allowing the company to achieve strong revenue and cash flow growth.
Chris Dods, CEO of Clean Earth stated of the transaction: “The momentum that CODI helped create will provide us with a strong platform for the future.”
Harsco Chairman and CEO Nick Grasberger commented: “The highly strategic and complementary acquisition of Clean Earth brings us closer to realizing our vision of becoming a global market leader and provider of environmental solutions to a variety of industries. This acquisition is expected to create significant strategic and financial benefits for our shareholders and customers, including higher margin and recurring revenues, cost savings and potential cross-selling opportunities beyond what either company could achieve on its own.”