Dial-a-Dump founder Ian Malouf says $577m Bingo deal worth celebrating

A jubilant Ian Malouf is ready to party after the $577m sale of a business he started as one man and a truck back in 1984.

Ian Malouf has sold his Dial a Dump waste business for $577 million. Picture: John Feder

Dial-a-Dump founder Ian Malouf will throw a big party after a six-month wait to sell his business to the ASX-listed Bingo Industries for $577m in cash and shares ended on Thursday after the competition regulator said it would not oppose the deal.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission gave the green light and said it would not oppose the deal after Bingo said it would divest a processing facility at Banksmeadow in NSW to allay concerns about market domination in the building and demolition waste sector in Sydney.

“I think we’ll get on the grog tonight and have a few beers. This one is worth celebrating,” Mr Malouf told The Australian just after the deal was approved on Thursday morning.

“We had a wait a while for it and I’m pissed off they had to sell an asset – that’s communism right there. But all in all I’m happy and we’ll get to work. It has been hard to keep working given we were waiting. You do your best, but we’ve got there now.

Bingo and Mr Malouf first struck an agreement last August for the sale, after the ACCC launched an investigation into the deal.

Mr Malouf dismissed concerns about the recent fall in Bingo’s share price, after it warned of a housing slowdown, given he will emerge with about 12 per cent of Bingo’s shares as part of the transaction, and insisted the merger was a positive move for both companies.

“I’m pissed off they had to sell an asset – that’s communism right there.”

“People who sold out last week will soon say ‘what the hell was I doing’. We will wake up and get straight to work, bringing the synergies together between these two companies and it going to be awesome.

Mr Malouf will join the Bingo board but said he would be a hands-on director.

“We’ve been competing against each other for 10 years but now we are going to combine the culture and the talent and come up with something really good. And I’m looking forward to rolling up the sleeves and getting into the operational side of things. I’ve had clients for 35 years and I won’t be walking away from them.”

Malouf owns the majority of Dial-a-Dump, which he started as a one-man rubbish collection business while still a student in 1984 and built into a business that had pre-tax earnings of $51.6m in 2018. Last year he struck a $100m deal with billionaire retailer Brett Blundy to buy out his share of the business ahead of the Bingo sale.