A subsidiary of German waste market leader Remondis has completed the acquisition of selected sites and contracts from Veolia and Suez in Australia effective 9 April. Veolia had committed to the sale of the assets in undertakings provided to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in the anti-trust review of its takeover of competitor Suez.
Remondis and Veolia had come to an agreement on the transaction in December. All conditions for the takeover had since been fulfilled, allowing the sale to be completed, Remondis Australia announced. A total of 80 Veolia employees working at three locations in Adelaide, Perth and Sydney will transfer to Remondis.
"This is a significant milestone in Remondis' 40-year history in Australia,” Remondis Australia CEO and managing director Björn Becker said. "The deal enables us to re-establish a strong presence in South Australia and strengthen our footprint in Western Australia and New South Wales."
Through its take-over of the new locations, Remondis is seeking to expand the range of services it provides to commercial and private customers as well as public-sector clients. Specifically, Remondis has taken over the former Jandakot Commercial & Industrial Collections Business site in Perth on the west coast of Australia. In the capital city of Adelaide, the Wingfield Commercial & Industrial Collections and Medical Waste Business which Remondis acquired from Suez also serves commercial and industrial customers. The facility also houses two autoclaves and thermal disposal equipment for secure product destruction and medical waste treatment.
The third site on the takeover is a transfer station in Sydney, formerly owned by Suez. Remondis hopes that this strategically located site will provide a further boost to its growth New South Wales. In addition, the company has also taken over a number of contracts with commercial and industrial customers from Veolia and Suez in Australia.
Prior to this most recent round of acquisitions, Remondis operated 30 sites in Australia, more than half of them in New South Wales. The concern had also been planning to build an energy from waste plant with a treatment capacity between 300,000 and 500,000 tonnes a year in the state of Queensland. The planning application for the project, which would have involved an investment of €260m, was withdrawn only recently.
