SOUTH AFRICA: Séché buys Spill Tech and strengthens its position in waste management

Séché Environnement is strengthening its position in South Africa. Through its local subsidiary Séché South Africa Proprietary, the French group has just acquired Spill Tech, a company based in Durban in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. The company, which is growing by more than 40% (per year, between 2018 and 2020), provides several environmental services for industrial clients, including hazardous waste management, site decontamination, maritime depollution and the treatment of polluted soil.

Spill Tech is very active in the petrochemical industry, food processing and mining with clients such as the South African giant Sasol, the French multinational Total, the Anglo-Dutch Shell and the British Petroleum (BP). “The acquisition of Spill Tech represents an additional opportunity to strengthen our position in South Africa, particularly in high value-added environmental services for our core industrial clients,” says Maxime Séché, Managing Director of Séché Environnement.

The sub-regional ambition

With 1,300 employees throughout South Africa, “Spill Tech should contribute in 2021 to Séché Environnement’s consolidated turnover of around 29 million euros, to the consolidated gross operating profit (EBITDA) of 7.9 million euros and to the consolidated net profit of 4.6 million euros,” Séché Environnement estimates. Through this transaction, the Séché group, which has more than 4,400 employees, is strengthening its position in the South African waste market, in the absence of the world’s environmental giants.

Two years before Spill Tech, Séché successfully acquired Interwaste Holding for €32 million. The company, listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange, provides services for the collection and recovery of waste into biogas, biomass or electricity. These acquisitions of local assets are part of Séché’s strategy to conquer the waste recovery market in Southern Africa.

Jean Marie Takouleu