Our guest on Episode 8 of Compounders was Alan McKim, the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Clean Harbors. Clean Harbors is a $5.3 billion market cap company that provides environmental and industrial services within North America. The company has two segments: Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainable Solutions. In the Environmental segment, Clean Harbors collects, treats, and disposes of waste within its company-owned landfills and incinerators. In addition, the Safety-Kleen division provides cleaning and waste disposal services to customers such as automotive repair shops. In fact, Clean Harbors is the largest recycler of used motor oil in North America.
Alan McKim founded the company in 1980 and took it public at $9 in 1987. Over that period of time, Clean Harbors has made a number of large acquisitions, including the transformational merger with Safety-Kleen in 2012. The company now produces over $3 billion in revenue and its stock has risen to about $100 per share.
It is not often that I have a chance to talk to someone who has run a company for 40 years. So, it was great to hear from Alan about the following topics:
- The uniqueness of the Clean Harbors asset base and how that creates a moat;
- How the company decides to take big swings when it comes to M&A;
- Educating people about how Clean Harbors is a good actor in a world increasingly focused on ESG;
- The impact of further environmental regulation on the company; and
- Building a cohesive culture over 40 years
Please enjoy the interview below or at the following sites:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40-years-of-moat-building-with-alan-mckim-founder/id1579124518?i=1000536112824
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne5XERZURzA
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3YlVdclFyg9Nk6wlXcqimy
Podbean: https://compounders.podbean.com/e/40-years-of-moat-building-with-alan-mckim-founder-and-ceo-of-clean-harbors-nyse-clh/
Also, if you have any comments, feedback, or guest recommendations, please contact us at podcast@covestreetcapital.com. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/CompoundersPod.
If you missed our last Compounders Podcast interview with Jeff Rosica from Avid Technology, you can view it here.
