BC Partners and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan have agreed to acquire GFL Environmental from HPS Investment Partners, Macquarie Infrastructure Partners and Hawthorn Equity Partners. The transaction has an enterprise valuation of approximately $5.1 billion.
GFL is a provider of environmental management services for both solid and liquid waste. The company’s services include collection, hauling, sorting, transfer and disposal of non-hazardous solid waste (including recyclable materials and organics); identification, collection, transport, processing, recycling and disposal of a range of hazardous and non-hazardous liquid wastes (plus sale of recycled liquid wastes and other liquid products); and soil remediation services, as well as site excavation, demolition, soil retention, foundations installation and specialty infrastructure project services.
The company has a network of more than 140 facilities across Canada and in Michigan and serves more than 2.5 million households under municipal contracts and more than 60,000 industrial, commercial and institutional customers. GFL has more than 5,000 employees and is headquartered in Toronto (www.gflenv.com).
Patrick Dovigi, the founder and CEO of GFL, will continue to lead the company and will maintain a significant ownership interest. “Today is a very important milestone for the next phase of growth of GFL. From our humble beginnings in 2007 with eight employees to having now grown to a workforce of over 5,000 in both Canada and the United States, the last 10 years have been nothing short of remarkable,” said Mr. Dovigi. “The signing of this transaction reflects the hard work and dedication of each and every one of our employees whose tireless efforts make GFL what it is today. Without them, our continued success would not be possible.”
“BC Partners is excited to be partnering with Patrick and his high-quality management team,” said Paolo Notarnicola, a Senior Partner at BC Partners who led the transaction. “Our goal is to provide the capital and strategic support necessary for the continuation of their remarkable growth story.”
BC Partners has €17 billion of capital under management and invests in companies in a variety of sectors. The firm was founded in 1986 and has offices in London, Hamburg and New York. Since inception, BC Partners has completed 101 private equity investments in companies with a total enterprise value of €124 billion and is currently investing its tenth private equity fund (www.bcpartners.com).
“GFL is an exceptional Canadian success story led by a proven management team. We expect this partnership with GFL and our partners at BC Partners to create significant value for our stakeholders,” said Jane Rowe, Senior Managing Director, Private Capital at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is one of Canada’s largest and most active pension investors with C$180 billion in net assets as of June 2017. Teachers’ portfolio of assets, 80% of which is managed in-house, has earned an annualized rate of return of 10.1% since the plan’s founding in 1990. Teachers’ has offices in Toronto, Hong Kong and London (www.otpp.com).
Citigroup Global Markets has provided committed financing for the transaction which is expected to close by June 30, 2018.
