The GFL Auction: When Alternative Money Gets Serious

By Siam Sukkhee Trading Co., Ltd — 2026-09-19 — Waste360 (recycling/scrap)

I was reading through the deal news yesterday, and I stumbled on something rather old-fashioned in its structure, actually. Two mega-consortia. Two rival bids. One company being pulled apart by the heavyweights.

GFL Environmental is the target. It's the waste management business in Canada that everyone's suddenly circling.

Here's the roster: KKR, Energy Capital Partners, and Blackstone have teamed up on one side. Brookfield Asset Management and IFM Investors are the opposition. Both groups want to take the company private, which, as far as I can tell, means they're serious about it. These aren't casual looks. These are consortium bids, which suggests the cheque books are open and the lawyers are already moving.

The numbers are fat. GFL is valued somewhere around $18 billion, give or take. They've got roughly $10 billion in debt sitting on the books. So we're talking about one of the largest leveraged buyouts the year's seen, something like that. The special committee—formed back in July to run the sale process—is supposed to wade through both offers and probably ask everyone to sharpen their pencils.

Why does this matter to someone trading metals in Bangkok?

Actually, that's not quite right. What matters is the appetite signal. When you see Blackstone, KKR, and Brookfield all queuing up for the same asset at the same time, you're watching alternative asset managers trying to deploy billions of dollars. Fast. Waste management infrastructure gets their money because it's steady, it's boring, it throws off cash, and nobody's going to stop making garbage anytime soon.

But here's what's interesting: the real bidding hasn't even started yet. The committee will ask for higher bids. The process could drag. New players might show up, or the consortia might shift. Nothing's locked in. The timeline could slip. These things always feel like they're moving at pace until they suddenly don't.

GFL's stock ticked up 8.4 percent when news hit the market on September 17. Toronto, Canadian dollars. That's the kind of move you see when traders believe something's actually going to happen. It's also the move you see when the owner—a guy named Patrick Dovigi, who controls a chunk of the company—has already said he's open to taking it private at the right price.

What you have here is old-fashioned M&A machinery. Consortia. Wealth moving slowly but inevitably. A seller who's interested. A special committee that will eventually pick a winner.

The decision comes in weeks, or so the insiders say. Though insiders say a lot of things.

Source: "Some of the world's biggest infrastructure investors are clubbing up to take over GFL Environmental Inc. in what could be one of the largest leveraged buyouts of the year." — Bloomberg

Tags: metal scrap recycling industry