10 Points About Progressive Waste’s Q215 Results

For Progressive net income in the latest quarter dropped 9.3 percent to $37.1 million, or 33 cents per share, compared with $40.9 million, or 36 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue for the quarter declined 4 percent to $493 million from $513.5 million a year earlier, according to a news release.

For the first half, net earnings dropped 17.2 percent to $55.3 million, or 49 cents per share, compared with $66.8 million, or 58 cents per share, in the 2014 period.

Revenue for the first half fell 3.1 percent to $953.2 million from $983.3 million in 2014.

When the U.S. and Canadian dollar differences discounted, Progressive Waste had a 0.6 percent increase in revenue, largely because of an increase in overall pricing and high volumes, and partially offset by net acquisitions and lower fuel surcharges.

President and CEO Joseph Quarin’s take: "Volume growth was the highest we have achieved since 2010, with improvement in our North, East and West regions, and across service lines, with the most notable increases in our commercial and residential collection lines and at our transfer stations and certain landfills. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our organic growth programs, as well as signs of a more supportive economic environment in the markets we serve."

Progressive is updating its 2015 outlook. Higher operating expenses because of the floods in Texas, as well as higher costs of insurable risk and bad debt expense prompted the company to lower its outlook for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Now the company expects adjusted EBITDA of about $500,000 to $515,000 in 2015, compared with its original expectation of between $515,000 to $535,000.

The results met Wall Street expectations. The average of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research also was for earnings of 28 cents per share, according to the Associated Press. Revenue rose slightly above what six analysts told Zacks they expected.

During the quarter Progressive reorganized its regional management structure into the East region (now including Florida); the West region (its former U.S. South segment, excluding Florida); and the North region (its former Canadian segment).

Quarin was one of the panelists at the WasteExpo Heavy Hitters panel. He talked about the ongoing cost of recycling problem. “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. 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.