French group Paprec is continuing to expand its international footprint by entering the Italian market. The company, France’s third-largest operator in the recycling and waste management market after Veolia and Suez is to acquire a majority stake in Convertini, a previously family-owned firm. Paprec announced an agreement to this effect this week. Financial details were not disclosed.
According to Paprec, Convertini specialises in industrial waste and generated revenues of around €20m in 2024. Founded in 1984 by the father of its managing director Ivan Convertini, the company has around 80 employees and operates throughout Italy. Paprec described it as "a strategic gateway to northern Italy, a particularly dynamic region of the country".
Focus on industrial customers in northern Italy
"Our aim is to expand in fast-growing European markets that are committed to decarbonising the economy through the recycling and recovery of their waste. In Italy, we want to develop in the industrial customer segment, particularly in the north of the country," commented Paprec’s president and director general, Mathieu Petithuguenin.
Paprec said that Italy had launched an ambitious overhaul of its regulatory framework in order to modernise its waste management sector. Alignment with EU requirements on waste prevention, reuse and recycling had fundamentally reshaped the industry and, in particular, strengthened control and traceability, according to the company.
Paprec aiming for a leading position in Europe
Paprec said that, in Italy, it planned to roll out the industrial and operational model that had already underpinned its success particularly in France, Switzerland and Spain, namely "high sorting quality, strict environmental standards, sustainable investment and high service quality". This approach was based on locally-rooted partnerships and controlled organic growth.
By entering the Italian market, Paprec said that it was reaffirming its ambition to become "a reference player in the European waste management sector and continue its international expansion", while preserving the entrepreneurial spirit that had shaped the company’s history.
Paprec was founded in 1984 by Jean‑Luc Petithuguenin with the acquisition of a recovered paper business in La Courneuve, near Paris. The company took its first step into markets outside France in 2010 by buying the Swiss recovered paper trader Lottner. A strong wave of internationalisation then followed with the takeover of plant engineering companies and maintenance specialists in the waste-to-energy (wte) sector, including Tiru/Dalkia Wastenergy, CNIM, and Inova Operations, which were consolidated into the Paprec Energies division in 2021. In 2022, the company entered the Spanish waste management market. Paprec said that it is currently active in eleven countries and employs 20,000 people.
Group expects to generate revenues of over €1bn from international activities
According to CFO Charles Antoine Blanc, the international operations’ share of group revenues is expected to exceed €1bn in 2026. At present, international revenues stand at €600m, with half generated in Spain, €200m in Switzerland and €100m largely in Poland and the UK, the business daily Usine Nouvelle quoted Paprec CEO Mathieu Petithuguenin as saying.
Mr Blanc said that Paprec booked a 17 per cent year-on-year growth in revenues to €3.5bn last year. He put earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) at €600m.
According to the CFO, Paprec’s order backlog stood at €14bn at the end of 2025. The group has a strong equity base of almost €1bn and is supported by its shareholders (Crédit Agricole, BNP, BPI, Arkéa, Vauban) and its banks. "On this very solid footing, we will continue to invest heavily in order to grow," the CFO added. No further details on the 2025 financial figures were disclosed.
Takeovers in France and Switzerland, new orders for energy division
In recent weeks and months, Paprec has announced a string of acquisitions and new contract wins. In February, it completed the full takeover of French waste management company Lely Environnement. The company generates annual revenues of €65m, employs roughly 200 people and is primarily active in the commercial waste and waste wood segments, according to Paprec.
In January, Paprec reported that the owner family of the southern French waste management company Pizzorno Environnemen was considering exercising an option negotiated with the group in a 2021 shareholders’ agreement. At that time, Paprec had acquired a 20 per cent stake in Pizzorno from the Pizzorno‑Devalle family and secured a right of first refusal.
If the planned transaction goes ahead, the family will sell 30.64 per cent of Pizzorno Environnement’s share capital to Paprec at €62.50 per share. Paprec said that it would then hold 50.64 per cent of the waste management company’s capital and 50.02 per cent of the voting rights. The Pizzorno-Devalle family would become the second-largest shareholder with 21.18 per cent of the capital and 30 per cent of the voting rights.
In December, Paprec announced that it had bought the French cable and non-ferrous recycler Alsarec and the Swiss scrap metals merchant Multimetall. According to the company, the two businesses generate annual revenues of €47m and €34m, respectively, and each handles roughly 11,000 tonnes of material each year. At that time, Paprec said that its metal recycling activities had handled around 1 million tonnes and generated full-year revenues of approximately €500m.
Earlier in March, the Paprec Energies division announced that it had won a contract to operate the Chaumont waste-to-energy plant and three transfer stations in the département of Haute-Marne from the SDED52 consortium. The contract runs for ten years. A few days later, financing was secured for the modernisation and expansion of the Salamandre waste-to-energy plant operated in Lasse in western France by the Sivert local authority group.
In November, Paprec announced the "largest order in its history”, a 26-year public service delegation contract valued at €1.3bn. The agreement covered the design, construction and operation of a waste-to-energy plant in Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes, east of Paris, with a capacity of 215,000 tonnes per year for the local authority group Sietrem. Paprec described it as "the most ambitious energy recovery project" awarded in France in 2025.
