A market leader in liquid waste management leveraged Espalier’s expertise to uncover strategic M&A targets in its core operational areas.
Client overview:
A leading U.S.-based waste management company specializing in septic, drain, grease, and grit trap services, as well as non-hazardous liquid waste management, sought to expand its operations through the acquisition of smaller companies within its niche. Espalier was brought on board to identify potential acquisition opportunities.
The Challenge:
The client faced significant challenges in identifying viable acquisition targets:
- Data Fragmentation: Information about potential acquisition targets was scattered across various public and private sources, making it difficult to compile a comprehensive and accurate list.
- Market Complexity: The highly fragmented waste management market posed difficulties in evaluating the suitability and growth potential of target companies.
- Regulatory Nuances: Variations in state regulations and demand across 387 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) required a nuanced and targeted approach.
These challenges left the client with two costly options: investing substantial resources in manual research or risking missed opportunities in a competitive landscape.
Espalier’s Approach:
Espalier addressed these challenges by deploying its AI-powered platform, leveraging proprietary knowledge assets and data-driven decision-making tools tailored to the waste management industry. The approach consisted of the following steps:
- Leveraging Espalier’s Industry Expertise:
- Comprehensive Knowledge Asset: Espalier’s platform integrates raw data from diverse sources, including company websites, regulatory filings, public news, manifests, digital media, and geospatial data. This data is continuously updated in real time.
- AI-Ready Datasets: Raw data is transformed into actionable datasets such as product and service offerings, M&A and funding activities, company profiles, waste generator data, service provider insights, and innovation trends.
- AI-Enabled Intelligence Extraction:
- Industry Taxonomy Development: Espalier developed a detailed taxonomy of the Liquid waste management sector, mapping the segments in which the client and competitors operate.
- Demand-Side Analysis: Espalier estimated demand for the client’s services across all 387 MSAs in the U.S., considering state regulations and market size. The top 25 MSAs were identified and prioritized for potential expansion.
- Supply-Side Analysis: Using Espalier’s data scanning tools, a comprehensive list of companies, ~250+ targets mapped to the products and services identified in the liquid waste management taxonomy in each MSA and profiles were compiled for the targeted MSAs.
- Target Identification: Espalier’s analytics tools evaluated and scored potential acquisition targets based on multiple data points, including presence in liquid waste management, vertically integrated, infrastructure analysis (service center or plant), employee growth, and geospatial analytics, culminating in a refined shortlist.
