SA Recycling buys yards in Southeast

Orange, California-based SA Recycling LLC says it has acquired the business assets of Southern Recycling LLC, including locations in Nashville, Tennessee, and in Bowling Green and Owensboro, Kentucky. Southern Recycling’s Nashville location includes a shredder.

The assets were purchased from Kentucky-based Houchens Industries Inc., with the acquisition closing and becoming effective Aug. 13.

SA Recycling says it has retained the employees of Southern Recycling, “and operations will continue uninterrupted effective Monday, Aug. 16, under the name SA Recycling LLC.” The company says the purchase will allow SA “to further increase its Southeast shredding and metals operations, as well as increase its scrap purchasing volumes in the area.”

In February of 2016, SA Recycling made its first entry into the Southeast scrap market when it purchased the 17 scrap processing facilities of the former Newell Recycling Southeast LLC. In November 2017, SA acquired the assets of Tennessee Valley Recycling LLC, which had been based in Decatur, Alabama, and operated seven locations in Alabama and Tennessee.

In 2018, SA made two more moves in the Southeast, acquiring the assets of Georgia Recyclers in Savannah, Georgia, and assuming the operations of yards in Mobile, Alabama, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, from St. Louis-based Alter Trading Corp.

Last year, SA acquired the assets of Steel City Recycling in Birmingham, Alabama, and West Point, Mississippi. Earlier this year, SA entered the Florida market with the purchases of Capital Scrap (Pompano Beach, Stuart, and West Palm Beach, Florida); Metals USA (Lauderhill, Miami and Opa Locka, Florida); and Southern Scrap (Pensacola, Florida).

In total, SA Recycling says it now operates 87 scrap processing facilities in multiple regions in the United States, including 15 shredders and deep-water port loading operations in Long Beach and Los Angeles, California and Savannah. The company is headed by CEO George Adams and is a joint venture between California-based Adams Steel and Australia-based Sims Ltd.

Houchens Industries is departing the scrap industry but remains a sizable 100 percent employee-owned company with more than 16,000 employees. Its holdings include food stores, restaurants, pharmacies, retail optical stores and a presence in the insurance, highway and commercial construction, distribution and manufacturing sectors.