Eight Takeaways from Waste Connections’ Latest Financial Results

Net income for Waste Connections slipped 8.5 percent to $57.4 million, or 46 cents per diluted share, compared with $62.7 million, or 50 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose 1.3 percent to $531.3 million from $524.7 million, according to a news release.

For the first six months net profits fell 2.2 percent to $109.2 million, or 88 cents per diluted share, compared with $111.7 million, or 89 cents per diluted share, in 2014.

Revenue for the first half advanced about 3 percent to $1.04 billion from $1.01 billion a year earlier.

Chairman and CEO Ronald Mittelstaedt said the company had strong organic growth that “enabled us to once again meet or exceed the upper end of expectations for the quarter. We are pleased to report that solid waste collection activity, disposal volumes and recycled commodity values improved throughout the period, providing good momentum into the second half of the year.  And E&P waste activity played out as expected."

Mittelstaedt believes the company is on track to report $705 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and $2.11 billion in revenue in 2015, meeting or exceeding full-year expectations updated in April.

The showing comes after an upbeat first quarter, when Waste Connections posted higher net earnings and revenue for its first quarter, on the strength of a strong solid waste collection and disposal performance. Mittelstaedt said at the time that he was particularly pleased in light of difficult weather conditions in some markets, lower-than-expected recycled commodity values and an estimated $5.4 million of expenses incurred in connection with both startup costs at two new exploration and production (E&P) waste facilities.

At the Heavy Hitters panel at WasteExpo Mittelstaedt agreed with the other CEOs that recycling plants basically should be seen as manufacturing plants, where you can’t be selling your output for less than the cost of your input. In other words, returns need to be based on collecting fees for the collection and processing of materials. Mittelstaedt also agreed that roll-off pulls have been particularly strong in the current environment.