Safety-Kleen Prepares to Sell the Company

Date: June 1, 2012

Source: News Room

Safety-Kleen Inc. plans to offer the company for sale while also laying the groundwork for an initial public offering, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The company's owners, which include Dallas-based asset manager Highland Capital Management LP, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and distressed-asset investor Contrarian Capital Management LLC, have hired Credit Suisse Group to advise them on the sale. Safety-Kleen had been a public company until it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2000 in the wake of an accounting scandal. In 2003, the company sold its Chemical Services division to Clean Harbors Inc. for about $300 million. Since then, under the able hands of former CEO Fred J. Florjancic, the company has steadily grown its business. In 2008, Safety-Kleen registered for an IPO but pulled those plans a few months later, citing market conditions. In 2010 the company rejected an offer from Clean Harbors to buy them for $13 a share ($716 million) under the belief that it was worth at least $20 a share ($1.1 billion), according to an opinion in a Delaware Court of Chancery case related to those talks.

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