The French utility group Veolia has agreed to sell the UK waste business of Suez to the Australian private equity group Macquarie for €2.4bn (£2bn) to resolve competition concerns.
Veolia, which agreed a €13bn deal to buy its smaller French rival last year after a bitter takeover battle, has been disposing of parts of Suez in a number of international markets to clear anti-trust concerns.
“Following this transaction, Veolia will remain a major player in the waste sector in the UK and, more broadly, in the environmental services market in the region,” said the Veolia chief executive, Estelle Brachlianoff.
The deal, the last step in Veolia’s acquisition of Suez, follows objections raised by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after the combination of the world’s two largest waste and water groups.
In May, the CMA said that the merger of the two companies’ businesses in the UK risked driving up council bills by cutting the choice of rubbish treatment and collection providers.
Brachlianoff said she was “very confident” that Veolia would gain regulatory approval for the deal, adding that the company needed to make one more small asset sale in the industrial water business in the UK.
“We are very satisfied with this transaction, which is being carried out under excellent conditions that once again demonstrate the attractiveness of the environmental services business and the relevance of our proposal for remedies to the CMA,” she said. “It will create significant value and strengthen our investment capacity in strategic markets.”
Suez UK has about 6,000 employees and makes about €900m of its €17.2bn global turnover in the UK. Veolia made €2.1bn in the UK and Ireland in 2020, out of global sales of €26bn.
Under the terms of last year’s €13bn takeover, Suez kept most of its operations in France – it is owned by investors including the French infrastructure group Meridiam and Global Infrastructure Partners of the US – while its international operations have been either absorbed by Veolia or sold off.
Veolia and Suez have already had to sell off several businesses to clear anti-trust issues with 17 other competition authorities, including Brussels.
“After the disposal of the remedies agreed with the European Commission and the signature of the agreement with Macquarie Asset Management, almost all of the antitrust divestitures will have been finalised less than a year after the acquisition of Suez,” Veolia said.
“The valuation of these [UK] assets reflects both the initial price and the synergies expected from the combination, in line with all of the disposals carried out in the frame of the antitrust clearances, which are higher than the acquisition price of Suez.”
The disposals, which totalled €3.4bn, will significantly reduce Veolia’s debt leverage.
“This will give Veolia additional investment capacity to finance growth in high value-added markets,” the company said.
