Safety-Kleen Probes Its Accounting Practices

Safety-Kleen Corp. placed on administrative leave its chief executive, Kenneth Winger, as well as its chief financial officer and chief operating officer, while a board-appointed committee investigates its accounting practices. The company said it started the investigation after the board “received information alleging possible accounting irregularities” that may have affected financial results since fiscal 1998. Columbia, S.C.-based Safety-Kleen, formed by a $2-billion buyout in 1998, is one of several U.S. trash companies to report accounting and management problems that analysts blame on rapid consolidation of trash-hauling companies in the last decade. Safety-Kleen shares fell $1.63 to close at $2 on the New York Stock Exchange.