Gerdau to buy Dale's Recycling ops for $60M

The deal includes Dale’s seven recycling centers in Tennessee, one in Kentucky, and one in Missouri.

According to Dale’s website, the family-owned business has been in operation since 1983 when current owner Dale Nelson Sr. founded it.

“This acquisition aims to increase capture of captive ferrous scrap by Gerdau through proprietary channels, supplying raw material to its operations at a competitive cost,” Gerdau SA said in an official notice to the market on Wednesday, Sept. 18.

The company expects the transaction to close by the end of this year.

“The yards will predominantly supply ferrous scrap to our mill in Jackson, Tenn.,” a Gerdau spokesperson told SMU in an email. In fact, one of Dale’s yards is just a mile away from the Jackson mill, which produces merchant bar, SBQ, and rebar products.

Gerdau completed a project to upgrade the plant’s rolling mill, roll shop, warehouse, and conveyer earlier this year. “The investment expanded the mill’s merchant bar product range and operational competitiveness, while improving the flexibility of Gerdau’s network of mills,” according to the spokesperson.

Gerdau’s Metals Recycling group currently operates 24 scrap yards and four shredders in the US and Canada; upon closing the deal with Dale’s, it will run nine additional yards.

Gerdau Long Steel North America, formerly known as Gerdau Ameristeel, is a Tampa, Fla.-based longs steel producer and metals recycler. It produces various steel products, including merchant bar, rebar, structural steel, piling, and wide-flange beams.