Navis exits ECO Industrial to China's Beijing Capital
Navis Capital Partners sold ECO Industrial Environmental Engineering, a Singapore-based hazardous waste management firm, to Beijing Capital Group (BCG) for S$246 million ($179 million)
Navis bought a controlling interest in ECO in 2007. According to a release, Navis helped the company shift away from general waste management and invested heavily in industrial and hazardous waste management, sewage sludge treatment, and the recovery of solvents and other complex recyclable wastes.
A year after the investment, ECO also won the exclusive rights to provide sewage sludge treatment services to the Public Utilities Board of Singapore on a 10-year contract, and built a dedicated facility with six incineration trains. Then in 2012, ECO commissioned a larger, hazardous waste-to-energy plant.
"ECO has a unique set of capabilities to process hazardous waste in the most environmentally sensitive ways possible, and to extract valuable recoverable materials for recycling that are unmatched by any other company in the region," said Nick Bloy, managing partner at Navis. "This is in part due to the strict and transparent regulatory and compliance regime in Singapore which means that only the best firms can survive and prosper."
Bloy noted that ECO's capabilities are increasingly relevant in other parts of Asia as governments start to crack down on environmental degradation caused from poor enforcement of waste management standards.
Lishun Wu, deputy general manager of BCG - which operates a wastewater treatment, water construction and real estate development businesses in China - added that the acquisition of ECO represents an opportunity for his company to establish a strong presence in Singapore's waste management market and could serve as a platform for BCG's future expansion in Southeast Asia.
"ECO's unique capabilities in processing toxic industrial waste are highly complementary to our existing business in China and abroad," he said.
Navis has one other waste management firm in its portfolio TES-Envirocorp, a Singapore-headquartered electronic waste (e-waste) company it acquired for an undisclosed sum.
Other Asian deals in this space include CITIC Group and KKR's purchase of a controlling stake in Chinese waste water treatment company United Envirotech last November, and the exit by J.P. Morgan's real assets fund of Chinese water treatment firm Goldtrust Water Holdings in April.
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