Waste Management, Inc
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Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Corporate scandals | Multinational companies | Waste management companies of the United States | Companies based in Houston
Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE: WMI) is a waste management, comprehensive waste, and environmental services company in North America. The company's network includes 413 collection operations, 370 transfer stations, 283 active landfill disposal sites, 17 waste-to-energy plants, 131 recycling plants, 95 beneficial-use landfill gas projects and 6 independent power production plants. Waste Management offers environmental services to nearly 21 million residential, industrial, municipal and commercial customers in the 48 contiguous United States, Alaska, Canada, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. With 22,000 collection and transfer vehicles, the company has the largest trucking fleet in the waste industry.[2]
HistoryIn the 1890s, Ham Huizenga, a Dutch immigrant, began hauling garbage at $1.25/wagon in Chicago. In 1968, Wayne Huizenga, Dean Buntrock, and Larry Beck founded Waste Management, Inc. and began aggressively purchasing many of the smaller garbage collection services across the country. In 1971, Waste Management went public, and by 1972, the company had made 133 acquisitions with $82M in revenue. It had 60,000 commercial and industrial accounts and 600,000 residential customers in 19 states and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In the 1980s, WM acquired Service Corp of America (SCA) to become the largest waste hauler in the country. In 1998, in a pivotal development point, WM merged with USA Waste and moved its headquarters from Chicago to Houston. The merged companies retained the WM brand. However, that year also brought trouble for the newly expanded company, in the form of an accounting scandal. In November 1999, turn-around CEO Maury Myers was brought in to help Waste Management recover. The company has since implemented new technologies, safety standards, and operational practices, and is on a steady upward climb. In 2003, the company had generated $1 billion in free cash and was returning profits to shareholders in the form of dividends.[3] Corporate Structure and LeadershipWaste Management is structured into the following units:
Current members of the board of directors of Waste Management are: John C. "Jack" Pope, David P. Steiner, Dr. Pastora San Juan Cafferty, Frank M. Clark, Jr., Pat Gross, Thomas I. Morgan, W. Robert Reum, and Steven G. Rothmeier. David P. Steiner is also the chief executive officer of the company (since 2004), succeeding A. Maurice Myers. Subsidaries
Corporate issuesAnti-trust allegationsIn 1987 the US Government accused Waste Management of violating antitrust laws.[4] They were specifically accused of colluding with other waste haulers to allocate customers in Florida. Accounting scandalIn 1998, an accounting scandal led to a major drop in stock price and led to the replacement of top executives, when the new CEO ordered a review of the company's accounting practices. The company had augmented the depreciation time length for their property, plant, and equipment, making their after-tax profits appear higher. The net result was $1.7B in inflated earnings. WM paid $457M to settle a shareholder class-action suit and the SEC fined WM's independent auditor, Arthur Andersen, $7 million for their role.[5][6] MarketingWMI used aggressive marketing to try to turn the company around in the 1990s, with slogans like: “What business do we have saying we help the environment? That is our business.“ and "Waste Management, helping the world dispose of its problems." The current slogan is “From everyday collection, to environmental protection, think green. Think Waste Management.“ References
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