00:00Patrick Dovigi is founder and CEO of GFL Environmental. It stands for Green for Life.
00:04And he joins us right now to take a look at the big picture.
00:07And Patrick, when it comes to dealmaking, you've been doing some deals.
00:11And in late July, you actually said GFL received takeover offers at valuations materially higher than where your stock was
00:17trading.
00:18So my question to you is, have you responded to these offers? Are you still open to selling the company?
00:24I mean, you know, I think since being a public company, we operate as a private company, you know, with
00:30private equity funding for a long period of time, for almost 14 years prior to going public.
00:35You know, I've been public now for almost five and a half years.
00:37And I think when I look back in time and sort of over the last five or six years, there's
00:42been probably four times in our history where I think the price of our stock has been sort of dislocated
00:47from, you know, what we've seen in our historical, you know, reasonable sort of type valuations.
00:54And, you know, one of those times the stock was overvalued, in my opinion.
00:57And, you know, three times, you know, coming out of COVID in March 2020, stocks seem to be undervalued.
01:03And then in 2022 and 2023, we went into this rising interest rate environment, you know, us doing a lot
01:09of M&A, a little bit more leverage, you know, stock was penalized a little bit.
01:14And then, you know, I think going into sort of coming out of this year and then the AI trade
01:18stock sort of sold off again.
01:20And that attracted, you know, as it has in the past, you know, the ability for, you know, some larger
01:25infrastructure funds, core funds, et cetera, that have, you know, potentially approached the company about potentially, you know, maybe taking
01:32the business private again.
01:34You know, no decisions from the company have been made.
01:36Obviously, we're shareholders first and we like to explore all opportunities for all of our shareholders.
01:42And, you know, at the appropriate time, that may or may not be an option.
01:45OK, so whether you decide to stay public or go private, how do you view your stake in the company?
01:52I just think, you know, we're very exciting times.
01:54I mean, you know, I've said this multiple times.
01:56I think when I think about the company today, we're sort of third earning of a long baseball game.
02:02The company obviously now is, you know, from a size and scale perspective, pro forma for our most recent acquisition,
02:09you know, roughly sort of nine and a half billion of revenue, three plus billion of EBITDA.
02:13You know, and that's spread through, you know, 10 provinces in Canada, 26 states in the U.S.
02:18So very large presence in the U.S. and obviously a very large presence in Canada.
02:23And I just feel really good about where the company is.
02:26And, you know, for my own, yes, I'm the founder.
02:28I started the company.
02:30I've done really well with the equity that I own in this company.
02:32And I have no intentions on doing anything other than continuing to run the company the way I have for
02:37the last 20 plus years.
02:38Now, you mentioned how you get a lot of your revenue from the U.S.
02:43Talk a little bit about this decision that you made to move your executive headquarters to Florida this year.
02:48You are now listed in the U.S. and in Canada.
02:51What was behind that decision?
02:52And I'm curious whether if you continue to gain market share in the U.S., it still makes sense for
02:56you to keep this dual identity between the U.S. and Canada.
03:00Yeah, so we're still a Canadian corporation.
03:03Well, we have significant operations in the United States.
03:07And I think just given some of the changes to around the index inclusion perspectives, both in Canada and the
03:14U.S.,
03:14so now you have the ability in Canada to be TS660 listed, as well as being listed sort of on
03:20S&P 400, 500, or, you know, depending on the size, as well as the Russell indexes.
03:25I think it just made sense for us to re-domicile our corporate head office to the U.S. to
03:30be able to get access to those U.S. indices.
03:32You know, as we know, passive flows are meaningful in, you know, as a public company.
03:38And I think it was just important that we got to the broadest base of shareholders that we could and
03:42continue to position the company for us to be able to do that.
03:45But as we move forward, shifting some of our financial reporting from IFRS accounting to U.S. Gap, which will
03:51then, you know, be the next leg in providing us an opportunity to be able to get S&P inclusion.
03:58So, you know, that was the strategic rationale of why we made the move.
04:03So, you're a former hockey player. You were a goaltender. You were drafted by the Edmonton Oilers, then traded to
04:08the Detroit Red Wings in 1997.
04:10You ended up playing in the minors for a couple of years while gaining entrepreneurial and business experience. It was
04:16a great biography.
04:18I'm curious about what it was like to switch between a defensive mindset in your sport and really a more
04:25offensive mindset when it comes to doing business and leading your own company.
04:30Yeah, I think it's, you know, you take a lot of the same philosophies from team sports to actually building
04:36a company.
04:36And I think, you know, that's how we sort of built the culture here. It's highly entrepreneurial.
04:42We all support one another. You know, not everyone's going to get along every day.
04:45And you have to find ways to sort of work within that and make the team work.
04:48And, you know, at times you have to make changes to the team and you have to make no different
04:52than what you would do in playing sports.
04:55And I think that sort of yielded, you know, an exceptional result here when you have to work within the
05:00framework of, you know, playing team sports growing up.
05:03I think that's, you know, a very important piece of it.
05:06And, you know, where we sit today, you know, we've been able to maintain that culture while the company started
05:12with, you know, a million dollars of revenue back in 2007.
05:15To fast forward today, nine and a half billion inside the public company and then approximately another five billion of
05:23revenue in the private companies that we maintain.
05:25So, you know, it's been it's been very successful.
05:30Again, I think we're in the early days of a long baseball game.
05:32And I think we were feeling really good about where it is.
05:35You know, all this the talk around Canada obviously has been it will be very good for our business as
05:41well.
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