Casella Waste Systems: Vermont’s Billion-dollar Company

After roughly two decades of “rebounding from a few bad decisions and rotten timing,” Vermont-based Casella Waste Systems is now trading at all-time highs and is a major hauler of trash in New England, according to a Forbes report.

The report notes that brothers John and Doug Casella now rank among Vermont’s richest with a combined 4.5 percent stake worth $90 million. John Casella still runs the company as CEO, while Doug Casella sits on the board. 

Forbes takes a look at how the Casella brothers have formed a rare company in Vermont.

Forbes has more information:

After a dozen tumultuous years, John and Doug Casella’s waste management firm, Casella Waste Systems, was on the ropes. On March 12, 2009, the company’s stock closed at 55 cents per share, its lowest price ever. When the brothers took the business public in 1997, it was worth over twenty times more.

The Casellas scrambled to keep the company afloat. “It’s certainly something that we remember painfully,” says John, 68. “It was a question then of whether investors really believed we could fix the issues and put them behind us or not.”

The believers have been rewarded. Casella Waste Systems is now trading at all-time highs with a market cap of over $1.8 billion. After rebounding from a few bad decisions and rotten timing over the past two decades, the brothers have rebuilt the company into a major mover of New Englanders’ garbage. John and Doug Casella now rank among the Green Mountain State’s richest with a combined 4.5% stake worth $90 million. John still runs the company as CEO, while Doug sits on the board. 

Read the full article here.