Amlon Group, a Plano, Texas-based waste management company, could acquire a company as large as itself—with around USD 100m in revenue, said Demetrios Dounis, a partner with investor Heartwood Partners.

While Amlon has the management bandwidth to integrate a large buy, it is focused on what is available and accretive.

“The reality is, when you get to this size, there aren’t that many targets out there,” he said.

The company is interested in companies that provide processing capabilities rather than field services and is “agnostic” as to size, he said. It would look at small or large companies that represent a good fit and welcomes calls from advisors about targets, he added.

Amlon announced in February that it had acquired industrial waste management company EcoWater Industries. It funded the buy through equity and debt, and the sellers remain invested in the company, Dounis said. The “courtship” took about a year, he said, and the target was working with lower middle market advisory firm Gilbert & Pardue, according to a press release.

Amlon will look anywhere in the US but would like to grow market share near its existing facilities in the South, Southeast, or Midwest. It will look to deepen its expertise in its existing verticals, which include hazardous or "K-listed" waste, wastewater, thermal solutions, medical waste, utilities, and industrial waste.

“There is a lot of opportunity in industrial wastewater,” he added.

Amlon is also working on organic growth initiatives such as expanding permits, expanding processing capacity, or even building a greenfield facility, he said. The company has a healthy balance sheet and could fund these initiatives through leverage, he added. When asked whether the company could be nearing a good size for an exit, he said it is “very early” and still in growth mode.

Heartwood acquired Amlon in 2021, with founders and management retaining a stake, and EcoWerks was its fourth buy since then. Amlon has doubled in size from the USD 50m in revenue it was generating at the time of the Heartwood deal, according to a previous report by this news service. Heartwood specializes in investing in family-owned businesses, with lower leverage ratios than traditional PE, as previously reported.

By Hana Askren