Waste Control Specialists is still seeing interest from other potential buyers in the wake of its foiled merger with rival EnergySolutions, a company spokesman said last week.
“People and entities are still looking at it and we anticipate there will be new ownership at some point,” WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said by telephone on Dec. 1.
McDonald said he could not discuss additional details, including the identities of possible buyers and the timeline for a new deal. He declined to discuss rumors that Paul Foster, a Texas oil and gas billionaire, had considered buying Waste Control Specialists but decided against it given his lack of familiarity with the company’s business.
Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists is owned by holding company Valhi Inc., and primarily operates a facility in West Texas for disposal of government and commercial waste, including low-level radioactive waste.
Valhi agreed in November 2015 to sell WCS for $367 million to Salt Lake City-based nuclear services provider EnergySolutions. However, the Department of Justice sued a year later to block the sale on antitrust grounds, arguing the deal would undercut competition by merging the sole licensees for low-level radioactive waste disposal in 36 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The parties went to court last spring, and a federal judge ruled in favor of the Justice Department in June. The companies canceled the planned buyout rather than appealing the ruling.
Since then, a number of companies have been rumored to be interested in acquiring Waste Control Specialists. However, a deal has not materialized – even as WCS President and CEO Rod Baltzer reportedly said at an industry event in October that an announcement would be forthcoming by the end of the month.
Waste Control Specialists has endured millions of dollars of financial losses in recent years, though its latest quarterly numbers showed significant improvement over the prior year before being dragged down by a $170.6 million asset charge linked to the blocked merger.
Valhi has acknowledged that it could be forced to close its financially struggling subsidiary if there is no buyout. In that scenario, its waste disposal site would be covered and closed.
Word is that interested parties are still out there, but names are hard to come by, one source told RadWaste Monitor. “Everybody seems optimistic,” the source said.
Other names floated as potential buyers include New Jersey-based nuclear equipment manufacturer Holtec International and French waste management company Veolia. The companies this week did not respond to requests for comment regarding their interest in Waste Control Specialists.
