3GS Seeks Acquisition Targets

The company, based in Knoxville, Tenn., is seeking to form the largest independent document destruction company in North America through targeted acquisitions.

Boehringer, CEO of 3GS, will oversee the strategic acquisitions and integration of companies, while West serves on the 3GS board of directors.

West says, "After almost a decade of public-company-led transactions in the destruction industry, we feel now is the time for a secondary consolidation given the bullish environment. Our years of experience tell us that the timing is right given the number of companies in the document shredding market."

West says the market is oversaturated with shredding companies, making pricing less aggressive, which makes it difficult for independent firms to grow organically. While a number of these firms are well run, they struggle to increase their operating margins, he adds.

West says response to 3GS has been good. "We have 12 transactions in the pipeline," he notes.

"Targeted mergers or acquisitions are essential if a company is to outgrow the competition. Organic growth alone is not the route to sustained growth," Boehringer says. "Additionally, no one in the industry is poised to take advantage of this more than 3GS," he adds. "This is a very exciting time for the 3GS team and our future companies."

Information destruction company File Thirteen, based in Lawton, Okla., has announced that it has again achieved AAA Certification for mobile and plant-based operations with endorsements for paper/printed media, micro media and computer hard-drive destruction from the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), Phoenix.

"NAID Certification further demonstrates our capabilities as a leader in the data destruction industry while proving our commitment to quality across our process and services," Matt Feil, owner of File Thirteen, says. 

Earlier this year, The Grossman Group Inc., Columbus, Ohio, launched Book-Destruction.com, a new division that offers guaranteed book destruction and recycling.

Through the first quarter of this year, Book-Destruction.com destroyed and recycled more than 100 trailer loads, or nearly 4.2 million pounds, of hardback and paperback books, catalogs with or without spirals, directories and corporate reports in bound form, according to The Grossman Group.

"We are capable of grinding these products without separating them into multiple categories of paper, with or without non-paper contamination, such as spirals, plastic inserts, CDs and bindings," The Grossman Group President Steve Grossman says. "Our operations are totally mechanical, eliminating the element of human temptation of converting these items for re-sale, something the generators are desperately trying to be assured will not happen.

"Our grinding, destruction and recycling facilities for these products are ultra secure, assuring the generators that their products are actually being recycled and not returned to the market place for resale on Web sites," Grossman adds.

Most of the books come from the obsolete inventories of book printers, publishers, distributors, libraries, schools and multiple collection sites primarily throughout the Midwest.

While Book-Destruction.com receives books from throughout the country, most of its suppliers are within 1,000 miles of Columbus or its partner operations in Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Once destroyed, the recovered materials are baled and shipped to paper mills, roofers or insulators to be converted into new products.

Redishred Capital Corp., based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has closed the books on the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year.

According to the company, the highlights of the first quarter include:

• Its completion of a qualifying transaction as a capital pool company via the purchase of Professional Shredding Corp. ("PSC") on March 17, 2008. PSC owns the trademarks and systems associated with the brand name Proshred in the United States and internationally outside of Canada;
• Its successfully closed private placement of $5 million; and
• Royalty revenue for the first quarter of nearly $36,570 for the period of March 17, 2008, to March 31, 2008 (11 business days). The royalty revenue was generated by Proshred franchisees. 

 
RediShred paid an aggregate purchase price of $5.3 million for PSC.

John Prittie, Redishred president and CEO, says, "We are excited at the prospect of growing the Proshred brand throughout the United States and beyond."

Mike Boehringer, formerly of EZShred and Shredding Solutions, and Mike West of NorthShore Capital Partners, have launched 3GS LLC with the intention of consolidating independent document destruction companies.