Sydney, June 22, 2026, 05:10 AEST
- Cleanaway ended Friday at A$2.37, losing 1.7% on the day and 2.1% for the week. The S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% over the week.
- Trading volume hit 65.4 million shares, over six times the recent average, ahead of the regular quarterly ASX 200 index changes on Monday. Cleanaway wasn’t included in the changes.
- Cleanaway’s financial year wraps up on June 30. The bulk of contracted prices should take in the latest fuel-cost hikes starting July 1.
Cleanaway Waste Management came into Monday’s session trading at A$2.37, the Friday low after heavier selling. Shares started at A$2.41 and touched A$2.43 but ended down 1.66%.
The stock is down 8.1% from the beginning of 2026 and off 12.6% for the financial year. Friday’s drop was sharper than the S&P/ASX 200’s 0.92% fall, with investors focusing on company earnings pressure over general market moves.
Turnover hit 65.4 million shares on Friday, well above the four-week average of roughly 10.6 million. The spike suggests big institutional actors or a single large block trade, but there’s no public data showing who was buying or selling.
Cleanaway in April cut its fiscal 2026 EBIT forecast to A$460 million to A$480 million from the earlier A$480 million to A$500 million range. The company pointed to higher fuel, supplier and logistics costs, and weaker Contract Resources activity in the Middle East. These factors are set to drag EBIT by about A$20 million.
Management is calling the hit mostly a timing issue, not a long-term profit squeeze. Cleanaway puts cost pressure onto customers through fuel surcharges, price reviews tied to indexes, and contract resets. Most of these price changes are expected to flow through from July 1, with some lagging into fiscal 2027.
The recovery story hangs on fuel costs, the timing of contracts and steady volumes. If diesel prices stay high for longer, customer repricing drags, projects slow or customer churn picks up, earnings could stay at the low end of guidance. Faster fuel normalisation, though, would help the outlook.
Pricing moves depend on competition. Australia’s competition regulator, in a 2023 report, called Cleanaway and Veolia the bigger integrated waste firms, with Remondis a smaller player. That setup can slow supplier price hikes in both commercial and municipal tenders that face competition.
Cleanaway will get a new chair as the financial year wraps up. Philippe Etienne will leave the post on June 30, making way for Samantha Hogg. Etienne said it was “the right time to transition the role of Chair to Sam.” Hogg said she was “honoured to be appointed as Chair of Cleanaway.”
Cleanaway hasn’t put out any new releases since June 12, when it announced its chair succession. That’s still the most recent company update. With nothing fresh out, traders on Monday will be watching the price and volume for signs if Friday’s fall was just end-of-quarter moves or if there’s fresh doubt about fuel cost recovery.
