Hi all, found this over at SS. Makes for interesting reading....

Hi all, found this over at SS. Makes for interesting reading.

Waste group gains from mining boom

Stephen Wisenthal
393 words
1 September 2005
Australian Financial Review
First
18
English
© 2005 Copyright John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.afr.com Not available for re-distribution.


TRANSPACIFIC
Full year 2005 ($m) 2004 ($m)*
Sales 483.0 -
Pretax 36.9 -
Net 22.9 -
EPS 10.7 ¢ -
Interim div 0.0 ¢ -
Final div 0.0 ¢ -
Shares (yest) $4.27 (-3 ¢)
* Listed May 3, 2005

Transpacific Industries expects its liquid waste management business will benefit from the continued mining boom and tougher enforcement of environmental rules.

The company is looking to make more acquisitions this year, both in waste management and in industrial services such as facilities management.

"Governments are becoming better enforcers of the regulations," founder and executive chairman Terry Peabody said.

This is particularly true outside cities, where environmental checks used to be less frequent. "EPAs [environmental protection agencies] in many states weren't going out to mine sites etc because of the remoteness and the costs," he said.

The increase in enforcement is coming at the same time as the resources boom creates more work for Transpacific across its waste management, services and heavy truck distribution businesses, which derive about one-third of revenue from the mining industry.

The miners were being careful to ensure liquid waste such as used oil was disposed of properly and increasing their use of outsourced services such as cleaning and maintenance.

"As new mines open, those opportunities are there," Mr Peabody said. "A lot of mines are expanding."

The group also was benefiting from a trend for companies to use fewer, bigger contractors. Transpacific was bidding for one of Australia's biggest bus tenders more than 500 buses for Sydney Transit Authority, worth almost $300 million. The bus decision is expected by late October or early November.

Transpacific shares fell 3 ¢ yesterday to $4.27. They were sold at $2.40 in the initial offering, which raised $211 million for Mr Peabody's family companies.

Profit of $22.9 million for the year ended June 30 compared with a $22.2 million forecast in the prospectus, and most other figures were close to forecasts.

"It shows that the business is pretty consistent," Mr Peabody said.

He indicated analysts' average forecast of a $45 million profit this year was likely to be achieved. "If they were too high on that, we would have to comment," he said. "All of our divisions are performing very strongly."
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TPI forecast of NPAT 45M places it on a PE of around 20. Thats all that needs to be said for now.

I hold, so make your own mind up. Always base your decisions on your own sound research.