Casella Waste Systems, Inc.
CWSTHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITYCasella Waste Systems, Inc. reads as an High Velocity (composite 70/100); Consistent Strategic Buyer deploying $2B across 24 disclosed transactions, up 447% vs the prior cycle · primary market Waste, ranked #6 on disclosed spend.
Lens
Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)
$1.5B
vs $281M in 2020–2022
Disclosed transactions
24
3/3 active fiscal years in window
Buyer archetype
Consistent Strategic Buyer
Meaningful spend appears across repeat years.
Composite score
70
High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity
Casella Waste Systems (CWST) is a public-company acquirer in waste management with $4.4B of disclosed M&A spend across 130 acquisitions over 17 active years. Strategy mix is led by Tuck In (44%), Geographic Expansion (22%), Bolt On (15%). Current capacity: $127M cash, $1.2B total debt, 2.5x net leverage (investment grade range). Has $198M of incremental debt capacity to a 3.0x IG threshold and $1.0B to the 5.0x HY transition. Disclosed median deal size sits at $34M.
- “We closed on eight acquisitions in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 ( fiscal year 2024), which further densified our Mid-Atlantic platform, expanded our operations into New Jersey as well as New York’s middle and lower Hudson Valley, and closed on several tuck-in acquisitions within our existing footprint.”- 10-K FY2024
- “We have focused on a balanced growth strategy through a combination of acquisitions, development projects, and new contracts while adhering to strict capital discipline standards”- 10-K FY2025
- “We remain focused on increasing our vertical integration in our Western region through extension of our reach into new markets.”- 10-K FY2023
- ▸Sustained small tuck-in pace consistent with disclosed median
- ▸Likely steers away from large platform bets
- ▸Limited to deal sizes under $1.0B if debt-funded.
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
- $2.1B disclosed buyer spend
Buyer Cadence
Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity
- Filed within 39d
- 125 acquisition-history signals
- 317 8-Ks
Target Probability
Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings
- 11 activism filings
Spin/Carve
Issuers showing spin-off, carve-out, or sum-of-parts posture
- 11 activism filings
Pressure Watch
Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure
- 11 activism filings
- Latest activism 9.9y ago; heavily discounted
Distress Watch
Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns
- 11 activism filings
Restatement Risk
Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings
Capital Velocity
DominantIssuers with the highest filing-activity intensity
- 317 8-Ks
- 5 form types
Quiet Power
Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence
- Enterprise value $6.5B
- 10-Q 39d ago
- 2 active signals
Capital cadence.
Ten-year disclosed M&A activity. Bars show spend ($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: $847M · Peak count: 14
| FY | Disclosed buys | Disclosed spend | Avg ticket | Audited tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 9 | $224M | $25M | N/A |
| 2024 | 8 | $469M | $59M | N/A |
| 2023 | 7 | $847M | $121M | N/A |
| 2022 | 14 | $78M | $6M | N/A |
| 2021 | N/A | $171M | N/A | N/A |
| 2020 | 10 | $33M | $3M | 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
- Tuck In20%
- Geographic Expansion20%
- Bolt On20%
- Horizontal Consolidation20%
- Vertical Integration20%
Strategy keywords
Terms recurring across recent 10-K acquisition disclosures.
- tuck_in
- geographic_expansion
- bolt_on
- horizontal_consolidation
- vertical_integration
Filing language.
Direct excerpts from acquisition disclosures and strategy sections: the verbs the buyer chose, in the filings they signed.
“We closed on eight acquisitions in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 ( fiscal year 2024), which further densified our Mid-Atlantic platform, expanded our operations into New Jersey as well as New York’s middle and lower Hudson Valley, and closed on several tuck-in acquisitions within our existing footprint.”
“Our Western region collection operations include leadership or near leadership positions in Rochester, New York and Burlington, Vermont and nearly every secondary market outside of the larger metropolitan markets.”
“We have focused on a balanced growth strategy through a combination of acquisitions, development projects, and new contracts while adhering to strict capital discipline standards”
“We are also focused on developing facility standards that will create a more welcoming and accommodating experience for our employees, customers, vendors, and site visitors.”
“We believe the strength of our balance sheet coupled with a robust acquisition pipeline positions us well for continued execution against our growth strategy.”
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
- #6 of 38
- Share of market capital
- 3.3%
Valuation positioning
CWST trades at a +2.5-turn premium to the Waste peer median of 13.2×.
- EV / Revenue
- 3.4×
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 2.5×
- Peer median EV / EBITDA
- 13.2×
Trading comparables
FMP market data · 2026-05-10
| Company | EV / EBITDA | EV / Rev | Net debt / EBITDA | Revenue | M&A 2023–2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17.3× | 5.0× | 3.3× | $9.6B | $3.6B | |
Casella Waste Systems, Inc.CWST | 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)342026-02-20
- 10-Q (quarterly)892026-05-01
- 8-K (event)3172026-04-30
- Proxy / DEF 14A942026-04-17
- Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)112016-07-25
Signals on file
- elevated
Activism on file
2016-07-2511 activist filings on file (13D, DFAN14A, PREC14A series).
- info
Signal
Disclosed acquisition spend
- info
Signal
10-K strategy themes
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.