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| WCAA > SEC Filings for WCAA > Form 10-Q on 31-Jul-2009 | All Recent SEC Filings |
31-Jul-2009
Quarterly Report
The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included elsewhere in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q. In addition, reference should be made to our audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto and related "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 as filed with the SEC on March 12, 2009. The discussion below contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. For additional information regarding some of these risks and uncertainties, please read "Risk Factors and Cautionary Statement About Forward-Looking Statements" included elsewhere in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Unless the context requires otherwise, references in this quarterly report on Form 10-Q to "WCA Waste," "we," "us" or "our" refer to WCA Waste Corporation on a consolidated basis.
Overview
We are a vertically integrated, non-hazardous solid waste management company providing non-hazardous solid waste collection, transfer, processing, and disposal services in the south and central regions of the United States. As of June 30, 2009, we served approximately 342,000 commercial, industrial and residential collection customers and 5,000 landfill and transfer station customers in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. We currently own and/or operate 24 landfills, 26 collection operations and 23 transfer stations/materials recovery facilities (MRFs). Of these facilities, two transfer stations and two landfills are fully permitted but not yet opened, and one transfer station is idle. Additionally, we currently operate but do not own three of the transfer stations.
General Review of Results for the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2009
Our operations consist of the collection, transfer, processing and disposal of non-hazardous solid waste. Our revenue is generated primarily from our landfill disposal services and our collection operations provided to residential, commercial and roll-off customers. Internalization refers to the disposal of collected waste into the landfills we own. All collected waste must ultimately be processed or disposed of, with landfills being the main depository for such waste. Generally, the most cost efficient collection services occur within a 35-mile operating radius from the disposal site (up to 100 miles if a transfer station is used). Collection companies that do not own a landfill within such range from their collection routes will usually have to dispose of the waste they collect in landfills owned by third parties. Thus, owning a landfill in a market area increases internalization which increases operating margins, improves operating cash flows and provides substantial leverage in the waste management business. Our internalization for the three and six months ended June 30, 2009 was 68.1% and 68.9%, respectively.
The following table reflects our revenue segmentation (before elimination of intercompany revenue) for the three and six months ended June 30, 2009 and 2008:
Three Months Ended Six Months Ended
June 30, June 30,
2009 2008 2009 2008
Collection 53.6 % 51.1 % 54.2 % 51.5 %
Disposal 30.9 % 29.7 % 30.4 % 30.3 %
Transfer and other 15.5 % 19.2 % 15.4 % 18.2 %
Total revenue before intercompany elimination 100.0 % 100.0 % 100.0 % 100.0 %
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The following table reflects our total revenue by source for the three and six months ended June 30, 2009 and 2008 (dollars in thousands):
Three Months Six Months
Ended June 30, Ended June 30,
2009 2008 2009 2008
Collection:
Residential $ 13,799 $ 12,360 $ 27,265 $ 24,277
Commercial 6,243 5,122 12,391 9,993
Roll-off 12,068 15,287 23,769 29,498
Total collection 32,110 32,769 63,425 63,768
Disposal 18,476 19,079 35,555 37,448
Less Intercompany 6,673 7,694 12,769 15,156
Disposal, net 11,803 11,385 22,786 22,292
Transfer and other 9,284 12,327 18,028 22,552
Less Intercompany 3,023 3,735 5,875 7,029
Transfer and other, net 6,261 8,592 12,153 15,523
Total revenue $ 50,174 $ 52,746 $ 98,364 $ 101,583
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Please read note 11 to our condensed consolidated financial statements included in Item 1 of this report for certain geographic information related to our operations.
Costs of services include, but are not limited to, labor, fuel and other operating expenses, equipment maintenance, disposal fees paid to third-party disposal facilities, insurance premiums and claims expense, selling expenses, wages and salaries of field personnel located at operating facilities, third-party transportation expense and state and local waste taxes. We are self-insured for up to $100,000, $250,000 and $250,000 of our general liability, workers' compensation and automobile liability per claim, respectively. The frequency and amount of claims or incidents could vary significantly from quarter-to-quarter and/or year-to-year, resulting in increased volatility of our costs of services.
General and administrative expenses include the salaries and benefits of our corporate management, certain centralized reporting, information technology and cash management costs and other overhead costs associated with our corporate office.
Depreciation and amortization expense includes depreciation of fixed assets over their estimated useful lives using the straight-line method and amortization of landfill costs and asset retirement costs based on the consumption of airspace.
In the past, we capitalized third-party expenditures related to pending acquisitions, such as legal, engineering, and accounting expenses, and certain direct expenditures such as travel costs. We expensed indirect acquisition costs, such as salaries, commissions and other corporate services, as we incurred them. We routinely evaluated all capitalized costs, and expensed those related to projects that we believed were not likely to succeed. Starting in 2009, all acquisition-related transaction and restructuring costs are expensed as incurred rather than capitalized as part of the acquisition costs.
After an acquisition is completed, we incur integration expenses related to (i) incorporating newly-acquired truck fleets into our preventative maintenance program, (ii) testing new employees to comply with Department of Transportation regulations, (iii) implementing our safety program, (iv) re-routing trucks and equipment to assure maximization of routing efficiencies and disposal internalization, and (v) converting customers to our billing system. We generally expect that the costs of acquiring and integrating an acquired business will be incurred primarily during the first 12 months after acquisition. Synergies from tuck-in acquisitions can also take as long as 12 months to be realized.
Forward-Looking Statements and Non-GAAP Measures
As indicated in "Risk Factors and Cautionary Statement About Forward-Looking Statements" above, this report contains forward-looking statements, all of which are qualified by the risk factors and other statements set forth in that section.
Our management evaluates our performance based on non-GAAP measures, of which the primary performance measure is EBITDA. EBITDA consists of earnings (net income or loss) available to common stockholders before preferred stock dividend, interest expense (including write-off of deferred financing costs and debt discount), impact of interest rate swap agreements, income tax expense, depreciation and amortization, impairment of goodwill, net loss on early disposition of notes receivable/payable, and expenses associated with a terminated transaction. We also use these same measures when evaluating potential acquisition candidates.
We believe EBITDA is useful to an investor in evaluating our operating performance because:
· it is widely used by investors in our industry to measure a company's operating performance without regard to items such as interest expense, depreciation and amortization, which can vary substantially from company to company depending upon accounting methods and book value of assets, financing methods, capital structure and the method by which assets were acquired;
· it helps investors more meaningfully evaluate and compare the results of our operations from period to period by removing the impact of our capital structure (primarily interest charges from our outstanding debt and the impact of our interest rate swap agreements and payment-in-kind (PIK) dividend) and asset base (primarily depreciation and amortization of our landfills and vehicles) from our operating results; and
· it helps investors identify items that are within our operational control. Depreciation charges, while a component of operating income, are fixed at the time of the asset purchase in accordance with the depreciable lives of the related asset and as such are not a directly controllable period operating charge.
Our management uses EBITDA:
· as a measure of operating performance because it assists us in comparing our performance on a consistent basis as it removes the impact of our capital structure and asset base from our operating results;
· as one method to estimate a purchase price (often expressed as a multiple of EBITDA) for solid waste companies we intend to acquire. The appropriate EBITDA multiple will vary from acquisition to acquisition depending on factors such as the size of the operation, the type of operation, the anticipated growth in the market, the strategic location of the operation in its market as well as other considerations;
· in presentations to our board of directors to enable them to have the same consistent measurement basis of operating performance used by management;
· as a measure for planning and forecasting overall expectations and for evaluating actual results against such expectations;
· in evaluations of field operations since it represents operational performance and takes into account financial measures within the control of the field operating units;
· as a component of incentive cash bonuses paid to our executive officers and other employees;
· to assess compliance with financial ratios and covenants included in our credit agreements; and
· in communications with investors, lenders, and others, concerning our financial performance.
The following presents a reconciliation of our total EBITDA to net income (loss) available to common stockholders (dollars in thousands):
Three Months Six Months
Ended June 30, Ended June 30,
2009 2008 2009 2008
Total EBITDA $ 13,861 $ 13,553 $ 26,893 $ 25,100
Depreciation and amortization (6,841 ) (6,909 ) (13,373 ) (13,400 )
Expenses associated with a terminated
transaction (259 ) - (259 ) -
Interest expense, net (4,555 ) (4,609 ) (9,014 ) (9,143 )
Impact of interest rate swap (465 ) 3,693 (843 ) (907 )
Loss on early disposition of note
receivable - (326 ) - (326 )
Income tax provision (908 ) (2,526 ) (2,007 ) (800 )
Accrued payment-in-kind dividend on
preferred stock (1,062 ) (1,011 ) (2,116 ) (2,016 )
Net income (loss) available to common
stockholders $ (229 ) $ 1,865 $ (719 ) $ (1,492 )
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Our EBITDA, as we define it, may not be comparable to similarly titled measures employed by other companies and is not a measure of performance calculated in accordance with GAAP. EBITDA should not be considered in isolation or as substitutes for operating income, net income or loss, cash flows provided by operating, investing and financing activities, or other income or cash flow statement data prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Acquisitions
We target acquisition opportunities that will benefit from our core operating strategy of maximizing the internalization of waste. In markets where we already own a landfill, we still intend to focus on expanding our presence by acquiring companies that also operate in that market or in adjacent markets ("tuck-in" acquisitions). Tuck-in acquisitions are sought to provide growth in revenue and increase market share and enable disposal internalization and consolidation of duplicative facilities and functions to maximize cost efficiencies and economies of scale. If we find an attractive new market, we seek to enter that market by acquiring a permitted landfill, followed by acquiring collection and/or transfer operations and internalizing waste into the landfill.
Any acquisition we make would be financed by cash on hand and available capacity under our revolving credit facility, and through additional debt, and/or additional equity, including common stock or preferred stock.
Since completing our initial public offering in June 2004 through the six months ended June 30, 2009, we have completed 35 acquisitions. The purchase price for these acquisitions consisted of approximately $234.7 million of cash, $1.3 million of prepaid airspace, $6.1 million of convertible debt, a seller note valued at $0.9 million, $11.9 million of assumed debt (net of $0.5 million of debt discount), $4.4 million of assumed deferred tax liabilities and 1,726,336 shares of our common stock, less a note receivable valued at $7.2 million.
We completed one acquisition during the six months ended June 30, 2009. Total consideration for this acquisition included $1.0 million of cash and a seller note valued at $0.9 million with two future payments of $0.5 million due on January 15, 2010 and 2011, respectively. Information concerning our acquisitions may be found in our previously filed periodic and current reports and in note 2 to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in Item 1 of this report.
The following sets forth additional information regarding our acquisitions since our initial public offering:
Completion
Company Location Region Date Operations
Texas Houston, TX II July 13, Collection
Environmental 2004
Waste
Ashley Trash Springfield, MO I August 17, Collection
Service 2004
Power Waste Birmingham, AL III August 31, Collection
2004
Blount Recycling Birmingham, AL III September Collection,
3, 2004 Landfill & Transfer
Station
Translift, Inc. Little Rock, AR III September Collection
17, 2004
Rural Disposal, Willow Springs, MO I November Collection
Inc. 12, 2004
Trash Away, Inc. Piedmont, SC III November Collection &
30, 2004 Transfer Station
Gecko Investments St. Louis, MO I January Collection &
(Eagle Ridge) 11, 2005 Landfill
MRR Southern, LLC High Point/Raleigh, III April 1, Landfill, Transfer
NC 2005 Station & MRF
Triangle Raleigh, NC III May 16, Collection
Environmental 2005
Foster Ferguson El Dorado Springs, I May 16, Collection
MO 2005
Triad Waste High Point, NC III May 31, Collection
2005
Proper Disposal Chanute, KS I May 31, Collection
2005
Fort Meade Fort Meade, FL II October 3, Landfill
Landfill 2005
Meyer & Gabbert Sarasota/Arcadia, II October 3, Collection,
FL 2005 Landfill & Transfer
Station
Pendergrass Refuse Springfield, MO I October 4, Collection
2005
Andy's Hauling Sarasota, FL II October Collection
21, 2005
Transit Waste Durango, II February Collection &
CO/Bloomfield, NM 10, 2006 Landfill
Fort Myers Fort Myers, FL II August 10, Transfer Station
Transfer Station 2006
(*)
WCA of St. Lucie, St. Lucie, FL II October 2, Transfer Station
LLC 2006
Sunrise Disposal, Springfield, MO I December Collection
LLC 28, 2006
Southwest Fort Myers, FL II January 3, Collection
Dumpster, Inc. (*) 2007
American Waste, Oklahoma City, OK II February Collection &
Inc. 21, 2007 Landfill
Klean Way Springfield, MO I March 30, Collection
Disposal, Inc. 2007
Carpenter Waste Oklahoma City, OK II May 31, Collection
Systems, LLC 2007
Fort Bend Regional Houston, TX II June 29, Collection,
Landfill 2007 Landfill & Transfer
Station
Big Red Ardmore, OK II August 14, Collection
Containers, Inc. 2007
Roll-Off Rentals Huntsville, AL III September Collection
4, 2007
Waste Pro Houston, TX II October 1, Collection
Services, LLC 2007
DH Griffin Greensboro, NC III October 1, Collection
Container 2007
Services, LLC
DH Griffin Raleigh, NC III October 1, Collection
Container of 2007
Raleigh, LLC
Maguire Disposal, Oklahoma City, OK II January 2, Collection
Inc. 2008
Advantage Waste Springfield/Verona, I October 1, Collection &
Services MO 2008 Transfer Station
Advanced Waste Houston, TX II October Collection
Services 31, 2008
MRR Southern, LLC Greensboro, NC III January Transfer Station
15, 2009
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(*) These assets were exchanged as part of the consideration for the acquisition of Fort Bend Regional Landfill.
Although we have reduced our acquisition efforts due to current market conditions, we intend to pursue selective acquisitions by focusing on those opportunities that most effectively leverage our existing infrastructure and maximize the internalization of waste.
Results of Operations
Three Months Ended June 30, 2009 Compared to Three Months Ended June 30, 2008
The following table sets forth the components of operating income (loss) by major operating segments (Region I: Kansas, Missouri; Region II: Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas; Region III: Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee) for the three months ended June 30, 2009 and 2008 and the changes between the segments for each category (dollars in thousands):
Region I Region II Region III Corporate Total % of Revenue
Three months ended
June 30, 2009:
Revenue $ 12,942 $ 25,991 $ 11,241 $ - $ 50,174 100.0
Cost of services 9,067 16,730 7,387 - 33,184 66.2
Depreciation and
amortization 1,485 3,315 1,915 126 6,841 13.6
General and
administrative 801 1,480 678 445 3,404 6.8
Operating income
(loss) $ 1,589 $ 4,466 $ 1,261 $ (571 ) $ 6,745 13.4
Three months ended
June 30, 2008:
Revenue $ 13,668 $ 25,768 $ 13,310 $ - $ 52,746 100.0
Cost of services 9,885 17,186 9,510 - 36,581 69.4
Depreciation and
amortization 1,387 3,287 2,100 135 6,909 13.1
General and
administrative 844 1,816 954 (909 ) 2,705 5.1
Operating income $ 1,552 $ 3,479 $ 746 $ 774 $ 6,551 12.4
Increase/(decrease)
in 2009 compared to
2008:
Revenue $ (726 ) $ 223 $ (2,069 ) $ - $ (2,572 )
Cost of services (818 ) (456 ) (2,123 ) - (3,397 )
Depreciation and
amortization 98 28 (185 ) (9 ) (68 )
General and
administrative (43 ) (336 ) (276 ) 1,354 699
Operating income
(loss) $ 37 $ 987 $ 515 $ (1,345 ) $ 194
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Revenue. Total revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2009 decreased by 4.9% to $50.2 million from $52.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2008. We estimate that volume decreases of $3.6 million and decreases in fuel surcharges of $1.7 million were partially offset by operational price increases of $1.1 million and acquisition growth of $1.6 million. The above table reflects the change in revenue in each operating region. The financial results of completed acquisitions are generally blended with existing operations and do not have separate financial information available with the exception of new regions acquired which can be analyzed individually. Revenue in Region III decreased $2.1 million primarily due to the volume decreases in Alabama and North Carolina as a result of general market conditions.
Cost of services. Total cost of services for the three months ended June 30, 2009 decreased $3.4 million, or 9.3%, to $33.2 million from $36.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2008. The primary cause of the decrease in cost of services was a $3.0 million reduction in fuel costs. Additionally, cost of services in Region III decreased $2.1 million as a result of the decrease in revenue in this region.
Overall cost of services decreased to 66.2% of revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2009 from 69.4% during the same period last year. Decreases in operating costs as a percentage of revenue were primarily attributable to lower fuel prices. Diesel fuel costs as a percentage of revenue decreased from 10.7% for the three months ended June 30, 2008 to 5.2% for the three months ended June 30, 2009. Other than periodic volatility in fuel prices, inflation has not materially affected our operations.
General and administrative. Total general and administrative expense for the three months ended June 30, 2009 increased $0.7 million, or 25.8%, to $3.4 million from $2.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2008. The increase in general and administrative expense was mainly attributable to increases in payroll-related expenses, timing of professional fees incurred, and expenses associated with a terminated transaction in 2009. Such increase also resulted in the increase of overall general and administrative expenses from 5.1% of revenue during the three months ended June 30, 2008 to 6.8% of revenue during the three months ended June 30, 2009.
The following table sets forth items below operating income in our condensed consolidated statement of operations and as a percentage of revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2009 and 2008 (dollars in thousands):
Three Months Ended June 30,
2009 2008
Operating income $ 6,745 13.4 % $ 6,551 12.4 %
Interest expense, net (4,555 ) (9.1 ) (4,609 ) (8.7 )
Impact on interest rate swap (465 ) (0.9 ) 3,693 7.0
Other income (loss), net 16 (0.0 ) (233 ) (0.5 )
Income tax provision (908 ) (1.8 ) (2,526 ) (4.8 )
Accrued payment-in-kind dividend on
preferred stock (1,062 ) (2.1 ) (1,011 ) (1.9 )
Net income (loss) available to common
stockholders $ (229 ) (0.5 )% $ 1,865 3.5 %
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Impact of interest rate swap. The impact of interest rate swap for the three . . .
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