IPO Filing: Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. (HCCI)

A rather small company called Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. has filed to come public via an initial public offering. The only two underwriters listed here are William Blair & Co. and Piper Jaffray, and the stock has an implied ticker of "HCCI" on NASDAQ.

The company claims to be the second largest provider of parts cleaning services in the United States that provides containerized waste services to small and mid-sized customers.  Within the industrial and hazardous waste services market, it focuses on parts cleaning, containerized waste, used oil and vacuum services.   It also estimates that these components together represent a $5 billion market opportunity and its network consists of 48 branches to 38 states and more than 34,000 client sites. During fiscal 2006, it performed more than 250,000 parts cleaning service calls.  Its largest customer accounted for only 1.2% of sales and its top 10 customers accounted for less than 7% of sales, so it is not reliant upon any single contract and arguably not reliant upon any groups of orders that may be closely linked.

Its sales were approximately $16 Million in fiscal 2000 and have grown to $77.1 Million in the 52 weeks ending March 24, 2007.  It also posted an operating profit of $7.4 million (after a one-time gain of $0.8 million) in the 52 weeks ending March 24, 2007. Up to $14 Million of the IPO will be subsequently placed with certain holders of preferred units and related persons.

Jon C. Ogg
June 19, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.