MIRA to buy Australia waste management business

MIRA was part of a CPE Capital-led consortium that submitted a bid for the company earlier this year. The latest offer makes no mention of CPE. According to The Australian Financial Review, CPE has decided to abandon the deal, leaving MIRA to go it alone.

The deal will see MIRA pay A$3.45 per share in cash for Bingo. The stock has traded in a range of A$3.00-3.30 since January, when the CPE-led offer aimed to take the company private at A$3.50 per share.

The stock jumped 10% following confirmation that Bingo's board intended to accept and recommend the new MIRA offer. It closed at A$3.42 on April 28, giving Bingo a market capitalization of A$2.2 billion. The offer represents an enterprise valuation of around A$2.6 billion, versus $2.3 billion in the previous bid.

Bingo's independent chairman and non-executive director Michael Coleman has recused himself from giving a recommendation on the MIRA offer as he is also a non-executive director at MIRA's parent Macquarie Group. 

Founded in 2005 as a family-owned skip business with four trucks and 100 bins, Bingo now has a workforce of around 1,000 staff, a fleet of about 330 trucks, a portfolio of landfill assets, and a network of 15 transfer and recycling facilities across New South Wales and Victoria.

Operations encompass end-to-end waste management and recycling services, including collections, processing, recovery, disposal, and related equipment manufacturing. As of June 2020, the company had an annual disposal capacity of 4.6 million metric tons.

Revenue for the 2020 financial year came to A$486.7 million, up 21% from the prior year, and totalled A$241.1 million for the first six months of financial 2021. Net profit almost tripled during 2020 to A$66 million. Profit for the first half of 2021 was A$16.7 million.

The company flagged a proactive COVID-19 mitigation strategy, including non-essential spending suspensions and labor saving initiatives.

"With MIRA's significant experience investing in and operating recycling and waste management businesses around the world, we look forward to bringing our expertise to support the team in delivering Bingo's next phase of growth," Frank Kwok, head of MIRA Asia Pacific, said in a statement.

MIRA claims more than $204 billion in assets under management globally. Its second Asia fund closed at the hard cap of $3.3 billion in 2018. The firm's Australian footprint includes 14 infrastructure projects, five agricultural projects, and three real estate assets.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Industrials
• Buyouts
• Support services
• Australia
• Macquarie Group
• CPE Capital