In its largest acquisition to date, Upstate Shredding - Ben Weitsman & Son Feb. 5 announced a purchase agreement to acquire Brenner Recycling Inc., a retail scrap metal and recycling company located in the city of Hazleton, Pa. The all cash transaction is scheduled for closing on April 1. Key Brenner executives and all employees will continue in their positions.

Brenner is a third-generation, family owned business in operation since 1925. It grew from a used auto parts yard to become the largest scrap metal, paper and cardboard recycler in the greater Hazleton area, which is approximately a two-hour drive from Philadelphia and New York City.

“This is by far our largest acquisition, a major facility with a well established business and excellent reputation”, said Steve Green, Upstate’s vice president.

“We plan on upgrading the entire facility and the trucking fleet to expand their current market coverage of about a 60-mile radius to well over 120. We will change the nature of the business from essentially a retail buyer of scrap metals to one that serves both retail and wholesale dealer business. Adam Rosenthal who recently joined as director of acquisitions was instrumental to this deal coming to fruition. This was his first acquisition deal since recently joining the company.”

Since December 2009, Upstate has acquired scrap metal companies in Syracuse, Jamestown and Liberty, N.Y. and in Towanda, Pa. to add to its operations in Binghamton, Ithaca and Owego, N.Y.

“We are in the process of acquiring another scrap metal business in central Pennsylvania that we will announce shortly. Once we have finalized that deal, we will be focusing 100 percent of our attention towards acquisitions in western New York State, but we are always interested in synergistic opportunities anywhere to build our feeder yard network,” said Rosenthal.

“I will advise Adam Weitsman if we should install another mega shredder in Pennsylvania to complement our newly installed 10,000 hp mega shredder in Owego, N.Y., if it makes sense.”

“Brenner has built a solid foundation, but we see the Hazleton location as a base to expand the business there substantially,” said Green. “In our Syracuse acquisition, for instance, we quickly increased volume 1,500 percent above initial projections during our first year of operation and it’s still growing. From Hazleton we will deploy a new, modern fleet of trucks and roll-off containers to serve a much wider area and a more diverse range of customer needs. We will also be lengthening hours of operation for customer convenience and add new, faster equipment to process higher volumes. Customers like our approach, better prices, faster service and same-day payment.”

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