Waste Connections, Inc.
WCNHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITYWaste Connections, Inc. reads as an High Velocity (composite 62/100); Programmatic Roll-Up deploying $4B across 56 disclosed transactions, running flat vs the prior cycle · primary market Waste, ranked #3 on disclosed spend.
Lens
Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)
$3.6B
vs $3.6B in 2020–2022
Disclosed transactions
56
3/3 active fiscal years in window
Buyer archetype
Programmatic Roll-Up
High recurring acquisition cadence, usually with many smaller targets.
Composite score
62
High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity
Waste Connections (WCN) is a public-company acquirer in waste management with $6.9B of disclosed M&A spend across 205 acquisitions over 13 active years. Strategy mix is led by Horizontal Consolidation (48%), Geographic Expansion (24%), Bolt On (16%). Current capacity: $112M cash, $9.2B total debt, 3.3x net leverage (high yield range). Currently $774M above the IG 3.0x threshold; $4.8B of remaining debt capacity before the 5.0x HY ceiling. Disclosed median deal size sits at $34M.
- “In new markets, we often use an initial acquisition as an operating base and seek to strengthen the acquired operation's presence in that market by providing additional services, adding new customers and making “tuck-in” acquisitions of other waste companies in that market or adjacent markets.”- 10-K FY2018
- “The North America solid waste services industry has experienced significant consolidation over the past decade, most notably with the merger between Republic Services, Inc. and Allied Waste Industries, Inc. in 2008, the sale of the U.S. solid waste business of Veolia Environnement S.A. to Advanced Disposal Services, Inc. in 2012, and our acquisition of Progressive Waste in June 2016.”- 10-K FY2016
- “The consolidation trend has caused solid waste companies to operate larger”- 10-K FY2022
- ▸More density buys in adjacent geographies
- ▸Selective regional roll-up where competitors lack scale
- ▸Room for a $4.8B debt-funded acquisition before HY 5.0x.
Behavioral posture, nine reads.
Each index scores the issuer 0–100 against an EDGAR-anchored definition. Scores ≥ threshold elevate the issuer into the index's constituent set; the dominant index drives the masthead label.
Active Acquirer
Companies actively deploying disclosed capital into M&A
- $9.2B disclosed buyer spend
Buyer Cadence
Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity
- 199 acquisition-history signals
- 153 8-Ks
Target Probability
Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings
- 5 activism filings
Spin/Carve
Issuers showing spin-off, carve-out, or sum-of-parts posture
- 5 activism filings
Pressure Watch
Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure
- 5 activism filings
- Latest activism 10y ago; heavily discounted
Distress Watch
Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns
- 5 activism filings
Restatement Risk
Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings
- 2 auditor changes
- Latest event 9.3y ago; heavily discounted
Capital Velocity
DominantIssuers with the highest filing-activity intensity
- 153 8-Ks
- 5 form types
Quiet Power
Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence
- Enterprise value $47.9B
- 10-Q 78d ago
- 3 active signals
Capital cadence.
Ten-year disclosed M&A activity. Bars show spend ($MM); ticks show recorded transaction count. Disclosure tier annotated where v6 audited corpus carries an entry.
Disclosed spend $MM Disclosed transactions (right axis)Peak spend year: $2,207M · Peak count: 30
| FY | Disclosed buys | Disclosed spend | Avg ticket | Audited tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 19 | $818M | $43M | N/A |
| 2024 | 24 | $2.1B | $88M | N/A |
| 2023 | 13 | $677M | $52M | N/A |
| 2022 | 24 | $2.2B | $92M | N/A |
| 2021 | 30 | $960M | $32M | N/A |
| 2020 | 21 | $389M | $19M | N/A |
Strategy posture.
The buyer's playbook in terms of strategic archetype: what each disclosed move says about how they're deploying capital.
Archetype mix
- Horizontal Consolidation33%
- Geographic Expansion33%
- Tuck In33%
Strategy keywords
Terms recurring across recent 10-K acquisition disclosures.
- horizontal_consolidation
- geographic_expansion
- bolt_on
- tuck_in
Filing language.
Direct excerpts from acquisition disclosures and strategy sections: the verbs the buyer chose, in the filings they signed.
“In new markets, we often use an initial acquisition as an operating base and seek to strengthen the acquired operation's presence in that market by providing additional services, adding new customers and making “tuck-in” acquisitions of other waste companies in that market or adjacent markets.”
“The solid waste industry has been consolidating and continues to consolidate as a result of a number of factors, including the increasing costs and complexity associated with waste management operations and regulatory compliance.”
“The solid waste services industry remains regional in nature, with acquisition opportunities available in select markets.”
“The solid waste industry is local and highly competitive in nature, requiring substantial labor and capital resources.”
“The North America solid waste services industry has experienced significant consolidation over the past decade, most notably with the merger between Republic Services, Inc. and Allied Waste Industries, Inc. in 2008, the sale of the U.S. solid waste business of Veolia Environnement S.A. to Advanced Disposal Services, Inc. in 2012, and our acquisition of Progressive Waste in June 2016.”
Market context.
Where this issuer sits inside its SE-Cluster rollup wedge, with disclosed-spend rank plus trading comparables against the public peer set.
Primary market
Waste
- Market spend (2023–2025)
- $24.4B
- Market spend (2020–2022)
- $21.3B
- Recent vs prior
- +15%
- Issuer rank in market
- #3 of 38
- Share of market capital
- 14.5%
Valuation positioning
WCN trades at a +4.1-turn premium to the Waste peer median of 13.2×.
- EV / Revenue
- 5.0×
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 3.3×
- Peer median EV / EBITDA
- 13.2×
Trading comparables
FMP market data · 2026-05-11
| Company | EV / EBITDA | EV / Rev | Net debt / EBITDA | Revenue | M&A 2023–2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Waste Connections, Inc.WCN | 17.3× | 5.0× | 3.3× | $9.6B | $3.6B |
| 15.7× | 3.4× | 2.5× | $1.9B | $1.5B | |
| 14.7× | 4.3× | 3.1× | $25.4B | $8.1B | |
| 13.2× | 2.5× | 1.9× | $6.1B | $598M | |
| 12.7× | 3.7× | 2.8× | $16.7B | $3.1B | |
| 12.0× | 3.9× | N/A | $6.7B | N/A |
Trading multiples from FMP market data; disclosed M&A spend from the SE-Cluster EDGAR 10-K corpus. Peer set = top disclosed buyers in Waste. Bars scaled to the highest EV/EBITDA in the set.
Target landscape.
Public-issuer targets that fit this buyer's archetype and target categories from filing-derived signal. Scores reflect cross-signal fit; reasons cite the EDGAR-anchored facts that drove the match.
No qualifying public-issuer targets surfaced from the current signal mix.
Stated target categories
No target categories enumerated in the audited corpus for this issuer.
Filing activity & signal stream.
Filing cadence and event-driven signals visible on EDGAR. The signal stream below is curated from restatement / spin-carve / activism categories, providing context for any near-term call.
Filing cadence
- 10-K (annual)182026-02-12
- 10-Q (quarterly)302026-04-23
- 8-K (event)1532026-04-22
- Proxy / DEF 14A242026-04-23
- Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)52016-02-26
Signals on file
- elevated
Auditor change
2017-03-292 Item 4.01 filings on file; certifying accountant change.
- elevated
Activism on file
2016-02-265 activist filings on file (13D, DFAN14A, PREC14A series).
- info
Signal
Disclosed acquisition spend
- info
Signal
10-K strategy themes
- info
Signal
Restatement risk
Audited corpus.
No audited record on file for this CIK in the current v6 corpus.
This issuer has not been extracted into the v6 audited acquirer corpus yet. The brief above pulls from ranking-level aggregates and issuer-index signal only.