Republic Services Poised To Benefit From Inorganic Growth

On Sep 1, we updated the research report on waste management firm, Republic Services, Inc. (NYSE:RSG) .

Republic Services is currently focusing on a series of quality acquisition opportunities, primarily of recycling assets, which are likely to act as a catalyst for a healthy long-term growth within its top 25 markets. The company is also transitioning to a fee-based recycling processing model to cover processing costs and generate a healthy return on investment.

Solid Inorganic Growth Prospects

In order to strengthen its market presence, Republic Services recently inked a definitive agreement to acquire ReCommunity Holdings II, Inc., the largest independent recycling-processing firm in the United States, for an undisclosed amount. The strategic acquisition is likely to complement the company’s existing recycling business and enable it to better serve its customers across multiple markets.

With 26 recycling centers in 14 states, ReCommunity operates single-stream recycling and multi-material processing facilities that transform waste materials into reusable items. These include the recycling of discarded paper into eco-friendly home insulation, aluminum cans and containers to harvest bauxite ore, a raw material for virgin aluminum and PET bottles into fresh new bottles or carpeting and clothing.

The various facilities of ReCommunity recover approximately 1.6 million tons of recycled commodities annually on an average. The state-of-the-art recycling facilities offer an unrivalled competitive advantage to Republic Services in the recycling business that continues to be one of the fastest growing segments of the waste stream. In addition, the acquisition will also facilitate Republic Services gain control of multiple long-term municipal agreements of ReCommunity with processing fee-based structures. These agreements align perfectly with the company's innovative recycling pricing model and are likely to generate incremental revenues.

Moving Forward

The transaction further reinforces Republic Services’ commitment to its Blue Planet sustainability initiative that aims at increasing its recycling capacity by an additional 150,000 tons or more per year by 2018. As part of this initiative, Republic Services is steadily building durable practices and programs to further improve its environmental and social impacts through decreased vehicle emissions, innovative landfill technologies, more use of renewable energy and community engagements.

The stock has outperformed the industry with an average year-to-date return of 14.4% compared with 10.8% gain for the latter. We remain impressed with the inherent growth potential of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock.

Better-ranked stocks in the industry include S&P Global, Inc. (NYSE:SPGI) , TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) and Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

S&P Global has a solid long-term earnings growth expectation of 12.5%. It topped estimates in each of the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 9.5%.

TransUnion has a healthy long-term earnings growth expectation of 10%. It beat estimates in each of the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 10.6%.

Accenture has a decent long-term earnings growth expectation of 10.3%. It topped estimates in each of the trailing four quarters with an average positive earnings surprise of 2.6%.

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