SAICA - Acquisition of Houghtons Waste Paper

Deal Summary

Catalyst advised S.A. Industrias Celulosa Aragonesa CIF (SAICA) on the acquisition of Houghtons Waste Paper.

SAICA is a Spanish privately owned integrated paper recycling group with a head office in Zaragoza, annual sales of €2.2 billion and employing 9,000 people across Europe. Its operations include paper collection and recycling, three paper mills and 45 corrugated packaging plants. SAICA has recently commissioned a 600,000 tons per annum paper mill in North West England at a cost of £290 million.

HWP is a family owned business based in Audenshaw, Manchester that has been in operation for over 35 years. It provides a paper and card recycling and secure document destruction service to North West based companies, schools, hospitals and local authorities. HWP currently processes in excess of 25,000 tonnes of waste paper annually at its modern recycling plant located just off the M60 motorway. The proximity of the HWP facility to SAICA’s new paper mill in Partington, South Manchester, located only 20 miles away, was a clear attraction to SAICA. Additionally, the plant has considerable capacity to expand its recycling volumes in the future.

What difference did we make?

This acquisition follows the earlier acquisitions of Futur Recycling (October 2010), Cutts Recycling (July 2011) and Stirling Fibre (August 2011). These deals give SAICA Natur UK Limited, the UK waste paper recycling operations of SAICA, a significant presence in the UK market.

Catalyst have been working with SAICA for two years helping them develop their operational infrastructure in the UK. This acquisition of HWP represents another step in that process, bringing SAICA up to nine recycling facilities across the UK with an annual processing capacity in excess of 400,000 tonnes.

These deals emphasize Catalyst’s ability to work closely with international clients over the long term and complete acquisitions of owner managed businesses in a sector in which Catalyst has specialist knowledge.

What our client said

"As a Spanish business we selected UK corporate finance advisors who we knew had deep knowledge of the waste industry and could execute our acquisition strategy. Catalyst has delivered on both these counts."

Victor Sanz
Managing Director, SAICA Natur