Cory rebrand to focus on EfW as landfill sites sold

Chief executive Nicholas Pollard told letsrecycle.com the company views EfW “in all its forms” as integral to the future of the business, which has been rebranded as Cory Riverside Energy.

It follows a period of restructuring for the waste firm following the sale of waste collections arm to Biffa in June 2016 and the sale of its landfill and gas assets to Armour.

Mr Pollard said that in his own view, it is “fundamentally wrong that the UK exports fuel and pays countries to take it when capacity should be being developed”.

‘Clean split’

He went on to state that the sale of Cory’s landfill and collections arms had resulted in “a very clean split” from the company’s core business.

Mr Pollard added: “There should be a good opportunity for developing EfW after the restructuring has taken place. We currently view EfW in all its forms as material to the strategic pathway and growth of our business.”

Cory’s sole EfW asset is the Riverside Resource Recovery centre at Belvedere in East London, which has capacity to treat up to 750,000 tonnes of residual waste per year.

The waste is transported up the River Thames from three main local authority customers: The London borough of Bexley, the City of London, and Western Riverside Waste Authority – which includes, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth and Wandsworth councils.

Armour

Armour Group is an international long-term liabilities specialist for the reinsurance sector based in Bermuda.

The Group has acquired all of Cory’s 30 landfill sites which combined produce around 60MW of landfill gas generation.

“There should be good opportunity for developing EfW after the restructuring has taken place.”

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Nicholas Pollard, chief executive
Cory Riverside Energy

While the landfill sites will begin reaching expiry in the coming years, many will continue to generate gas from the breakdown of waste long after they have been capped – which has piqued the interest of investors not typically associated with the waste market.

The sale is part of Cory’s restructuring phase which began nearly two years ago after its previous owners Eiser Infrastructure, Finpro, Capital Riesgo Global and Santander sold the business to creditors in August 2015.

Collections

The business shed its waste collections arm last year, with Biffa acquiring Cory Environmental Municipal Services for a cash consideration of £21.8 million, which includes its debt. The sale included four local authority collection contracts with Cornwall, Lincoln, Rutland and Tunbridge Wells councils.

Mr Pollard confirmed that SVP Global, Commerzbank and private equity investor EQT are now the primary investors in Cory Riverside Energy – with SVP Global the majority shareholder.