Canadian waste management firm GFL Environmental is considering a transaction that would take it private after drawing interest from buyout firms, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The company has been speaking with advisers about its options, having received preliminary interest from investment firms in recent months, the report said, citing the people who asked not to be identified as they were discussing confidential information.
GFL CEO Patrick Dovigi said his company would decline to comment at this time when queried about the report by Reuters.
The company’s New York-listed shares closed nearly flat on Thursday, giving it a market valuation of US$13.54 billion, according to LSEG data.
GFL has about US$7.1 billion in debt and its size could be a hurdle to a possible transaction, the report said, adding a buyer would need to convince Dovigi to roll over his stake to make a deal work.
Some suitors may consider taking a smaller stake in GFL instead of pursuing a full buyout, some of the people cited in the report said.
Deliberations are at an early stage and there is no certainty they will end in a transaction, the Bloomberg report added.
Last year, GFL sold its environmental services division to Apollo and BC Partners for US$5.6 billion and had announced a deal to recapitalize its construction unit, Green Infrastructure Partners, at an enterprise value of US$4.25 billion.
In April, GFL said it would buy peer Secure Waste Infrastructure in a deal worth about $6.4 billion (US$4.51 billion), including debt, as it looks to deepen its presence in Western Canada.
(Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Koyena Das; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
