Scrap Firm Industrial Services Sells Waste Segment

Scrap recycler Industrial Services of America Inc. (ISA) has sold its Waste Services segment to an unidentified buyer for $7.5 million in cash.

The sale by the Louisville, Ky.-based ISA includes most of the assets in the firm’s commercial, retail and industrial waste and recycling management services business, which ISA operated under the name Computerized Waste Systems (CWS). The deal also includes ISA’s equipment sales, rental and maintenance business for the commercial and industrial waste and recycling industry, which operates under the name Waste Equipment Sales and Service Co., according to a news release.

Subtracted from the cash payment was $150,000, pending any working capital adjustment. The buyer assumed certain liabilities related to the Waste Services segment.

ISA is using the proceeds from the sale to repay debt. “The company is pleased with completing this transaction and providing liquidity to the business,” said ISA President Sean Garber. “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.”

Publicly traded ISA buys, processes and markets ferrous and non-ferrous metals and other recyclable commodities and sells used auto parts.

ISA ranked 30th on the Waste100 listing of the largest waste and recycling companies in North America. It characterized ISA as having 2014 revenue of $117.4 million. The company ranked 24^th in the previous year’s listing. The Waste 100 reported ISA as having 96 employees.

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has been trying to bolster the slumping industry by means such as opposing one-bin collection, which it claims adds to the material contamination. Private-sector recyclers generate nearly $90 billion annually by selling metal, paper, plastic, glass, rubber, textiles and electronics to manufacturers that can reuse it, according to ISRI figures.

Also, the industry continues to expand. In August Cohen Recycling announced it is expanding its electronic-waste recycling facility in its headquarters city of Middletown, Ohio, increasing its production capacity by eight times. Cohen planned to add 50,000 square feet to bring the new facility to 110,000 square feet total with a $7 million investment. The expanded operation was to house a new processing system that will spur the production increase.