Australian investment bank to buy Beauparc for €1 billion
By Maurice Garvey
AUSTRALIAN investment bank Macquarie confirmed it reached an agreement to buy Ballymount company Beauparc – which owns the Greenstar and Panda waste brands – for an undisclosed sum, believed to be around €1bn.
The new owner of Beauparc Utilities is planning to grow the business through acquisition and organic means across the UK and mainland Europe.
Brian Bolger, fleet commercial director at Panda, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan and Des Crinion, Managing Director Recycling, Beauparc
Minority shareholder, Blackstone, set about putting its stake on the market late last year, a move which attracted takeover approaches from dozens of private equity firms.
The sale is subject to regulatory approval but is expected to complete during the third quarter of this year.
It will create a sizeable cash windfall for Beauparc’s current owners – founder Eamon Waters and US private equity firm Blackstone, who acquired a 37.6 per cent stake in Beauparc two years ago.
Wall Street investment bank JP Morgan, were hired to work on finding a buyer for the Blackstone stake, and are understood to have fielded up to 30 expressions of interest from US, UK and European private equity and infrastructure firms for the entire business.
However, as the process progressed, a full sale of the company was pursued.
Beauparc’s interests span recycling to waste-to-resources.
As well as a leading position in Ireland, it has a growing presence in Britain and the Netherlands. In Ireland, it also owns A1 Skips, Bioverda, OZO and Panda Power.
Macquarie has said it wants to expand Beauparc’s UK business – currently strong in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire – through organic growth, acquisitions and increasing its waste recycling and processing volumes.
They said the company also plans to further expand Beauparc’s position in mainland Europe.
Beauparc-owned businesses currently serve more than 340,000 residential, commercial, electricity and gas customers across a portfolio of 40 waste facilities, where more than three million tonnes of waste is processed each year.
Beauparc is seeking to increase the amount of recyclable waste through significant investments in plastics recycling, soil restoration and anaerobic digestion.
