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Suez chief welcomes ‘clarity’ of UK sale agreement

The chief executive of Suez recycling and recovery UK, John Scanlon, has welcomed Veolia’s announcement today (8 August) that it has agreed to sell his company’s UK waste business to Australian asset management firm Macquarie.

The €2.4 billion agreement to sell Suez UK to Macquarie was agreed on 8 August

The €2.4 billion (£2.02 billion) agreement was announced this morning as part of efforts by Veolia to “effectively address the main concerns of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)”.

While the deal remains subject to the CMA’s approval and the right of first refusal to ‘the new Suez’, Mr Scanlon said he hopes it ends an “unsettling time” for the company.

It has clearly been an unsettling time

  • John Scanlon, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK

Journey

In a statement given to letsrecycle.com, Mr Scanlon said: “We are very pleased that Veolia has agreed a deal in principle with Macquarie Group Ltd (Macquarie) for the sale of Suez recycling and recovery UK.

John Scanlon is CEO of Suez recycling and Recovery UK

“It has clearly been an unsettling time since this stage in our journey began back in August 2020 and as it draws to an end, almost two years on, it brings greater clarity over our future direction, with hopefully a new owner in place before the end of the year.

“This will allow us to continue to focus as a company on providing essential waste and recycling services for our customers, whilst delivering our commitment to people and planet, and moving towards our vision of ‘living in a world where there is no more waste’.”

Macquarie

If the deal is approved by the CMA and the new Suez chooses not to take up its first refusal, it will lead to Macquarie becoming a huge player in the waste market.

It already owns Beauparc, which has completed a string of acquisitions recently, including Acumen, B&M Waste and Mid UK Recycling.

Private equity

The move is a further example of the growing interest in UK waste management firms from private equity companies.

Biffa recently became the latest large waste company to attract attention, announcing in June that it had been the subject of offers from US-owned Energy Capital Partners (see letsrecycle.com story).

This follows recent moves by KKR to buy Viridor, Macquarie to buy Beauparc and Ancala to acquire Augean.

Reconomy is another example. It was acquired by EMK Capital and has since embarked on an aggressive expansion strategy since then to become one of the biggest operators.

This has been put down to the sector’s growing importance in the climate debate and rising environmental, social and governance budgets (see letsrecycle.com story).

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