The company, which includes Suez’s French waste and water businesses divested from the Veolia acquisition, confirmed its interest in a statement on 8 August.
This comes after Veolia and Macquarie, the owners of Beauparc, agreed a £2 billion deal for Suez’s UK recycling and Recovery assets the previous day (see letsrecycle.com story).
The statement said: “Suez took due note of the agreement between Veolia and Macquarie in relation to the acquisition of the former Suez R&R assets in the UK.
“Suez confirms its interest in the potential acquisition of its former recycling and recovery assets in the UK. Suez will assess in details the terms of the agreement with Macquarie, at the end of which it will decide to exercise or not its right of first refusal.”
Terms
Suez is entitled to offer on the same terms as Macquarie as part of the agreement struck with Veolia to sell the business.
Once it receives a notification from Veolia, it will have 30 business days to “acquire those assets from Veolia with terms and conditions equivalent to the ones proposed by Macquarie.”
Any deal would still be subject to approval from the Competitions and Markets Authority, which has said it is “carefully reviewing” the evidence (see letsrecycle.com story).
Australian-owned Macquarie is yet to comment publicly, and the race for Suez’s UK assets, worth around £1 billion a year in revenue, is now set to hot up in the coming weeks.
Macquarie Asset Management is a global asset manager that “aims to deliver positive impact for everyone”. It says its portfolio is worth around €523 billion globally.
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