BIFFA, the waste management arm of water company Severn Trent, has extended its toehold in Scotland with a second small acquisition in the Central Belt.
It has acquired Tenants Skips based at Forth in Lanarkshire. This will be integrated with the waste collection business of Pattersons Quarries in Coatbridge, which Biffa bought last month.
No price has been disclosed for either transaction, but Biffa is believed to have paid less than #5m for Pattersons and less than #1m for Tenants.
The Pattersons business gave Biffa a presence in Scotland for the first time with a collection depot, 29 trucks and a 15-year agreement to use disused Pattersons quarries as landfill sites. Biffa has since invested #500,000 in five more trucks and other equipment.
Operations director Nigel Manning said Biffa would continue expanding through small acquisitions in central Scotland. ''Tenants is a relatively small company, but it adds an important piece to our expansion jigsaw,'' he said.
Biffa's aim is to grow enough to challenge the two leading waste management companies in Scotland, Shanks & McEwan and UK Waste, head to head.
With landfill taxes running at up to #10 per tonne and European Union recycling requirements growing ever stricter, the scope of Biffa is starting to widen.
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