Berlin. The ALBA Group, one of the leading environmental services companies and raw material providers worldwide will be looking for a partner over the next few months. By taking in a minority investor, the family-run company wants to push ahead with growth on the Asian market and strengthen its network of locations with greater depth of value added on its home markets in the medium-term.
Axel Schweitzer, CEO and member of the founding family: “We want to speed up our further growth from a position of strength together with a partner. The opening for a minority investor opens up interesting new perspectives for our company on both our home markets and in Asia. We also see competitive advantages by strengthening our financial situation.” The planned expansion of the scope of financing and the opening for a partner, who is not part of the family, is also taking place in light of the company wanting to financially arm itself against turbulence on the stock exchanges.
At the start of October last year, external ALBA SE shareholders tendered their shares to the ALBA Group for the first time in three years during the collapse of the Dax. At that time, this restricted the scope for further investments in growth markets. As a result, the company successfully agreed the topping up of its financial capacity with its banks. “The Group’s liquidity is currently more than adequate but we are definitely stronger together with an equity partner,” says CEO Axel Schweitzer. He continues: “We have a strict plan, but are not in a hurry and are assuming, that it will take at least until the end of the year to find the right partner.”
The company is also on the right course in the operative business. Axel Schweitzer: “The Group has been able to assert itself really well on the markets where it operates.” At the same time, it has created a new industry standard by interlinking the steel and metals recycling segment with the waste management and recycling division of the ALBA Group. The more slimline structures associated with this also had an effect like the optimisation of the entire portfolio and sales campaign.
Background: The ALBA Group is one of the ten largest companies for recycling and environmental services in the world. The group can serve the relevant value creation chain of “urban mining” with leading recycling technologies.
About ALBA Group:
With its two brands – ALBA and Interseroh – ALBA Group operates within Germany, Europe, the U.S. and Asia. With an annual turnover of approx. 2.6 billion Euros (2013) and more than 8,000 employees* ALBA Group is one of the leading recycling and environmental services companies as well as raw material providers worldwide. In 2013 alone ALBA Group saved more than 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases compared to primary production and at the same time about 51 million tonnes of primary raw materials through its recycling activities.
* headcount / minority shareholdings included
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