Progressive Realigns Regions, Finances

Progressive Waste Solutions Ltd. reorganized its regional management structure and provided historical financial disclosure to reflect the changes.

(This updates an earlier story to clarify the financial aspect.)

The Vaughan, Ontario-based waste and recycling company has realigned its reporting segments, according to a news release. Progressive expanded the former U.S. Northeast segment to include the company’s operations in Florida and renamed it the East region. Its former U.S. South segment, excluding Florida, now is the West region; and the company named its former Canadian segment the North region.

Progressive said the moves position the company to achieve its plan for operational excellence.

Progressive also is reallocating certain selling, general and administration expenses to operating expenses to provide better comparability within its industry group. It is also adjusting capital and landfill asset purchases for non-cash working capital changes in the calculation of free cash flow.

For Progressive’s 2015 first quarter, the adjusted revenue totals $153.9 million for the North; $158.4 million for the West; and $147.9 million for the East.  That compares with previous totals of $153.9 for Canada; $158.4 million for the U.S. South; and $147.9 million for the U.S. Northeast.

For its first quarter of this year Progressive posted lower net income and revenue, attributed in part to interest rate differences between Canada and the United States. Net earnings dropped 30 percent to $18.1 million, compared with $25.9 million in the 2014 first quarter. Revenue fell 2 percent to $460.2 million from $469.8 million.

At WasteExpo in June, Progressive CEO Joseph Quarin was one of the panelists on the Heavy Hitters keynote panel session. Quarin agreed with the other CEOs that a fundamental problem currently with recycling is that recycling plants really are manufacturing plants, and you can’t sell your output for more than the cost of your input. “If you go back on how you bid these contracts, you bid a collection fee and assumed commodity prices would take care of processing costs,” he said. “We have to step in and say, if we are collecting, charge for collection and if we are processing, charge for processing.” How you split the revenues or costs of the end products should be a separate discussion.