The sale will be one of the last to be made for Cleanaway businesses, with the sale completed earlier this week of Cleanaway in Australia and New Zealand for 700 million.
Brambles decided to sell its Cleanaway divisions late last year (see letsrecycle.com story), some of which had faced strong pressures over their performance levels, particularly in Germany where the company had been hit by a DSD retendering procedure.
Estimates of the value of the UK business are put at around 500 million, and there were seven bidders for the company last month. Now, the shortlist is thought to have been whittled down to about three firms with strong French and Spanish interest. National press reports have suggested that waste management company SITA UK and two buy-out firms – BC Partners and PAI Partners, which has strong French connections – are now the main contenders.
Spanish interest
However, strong interest is also thought to be coming from FCC Group of Spain, which has the Focsa Services operation in the UK. FCC was in the past partly owned by Veolia Environmental and some links between the two are still believed to be in place, notably through a 50:50 partnership between the pair in South America. Veolia itself is also thought to be a candidate to buy the Cleanaway business.
FCC, originally a construction business, continues to expand into the services sector including waste, which with water contributed an estimated 37% of its income in 2004 compared with 30% the year before. FCC employs 55,000 people and has a turnover of more than 2 billion Euros.
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