Dutch Waste Firm Considers IPO

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch waste management firm Van Gansewinkel said it was looking to divest a stake, preferably through an initial public offering (IPO), as its private equity owners look for an exit.

Van Gansewinkel is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and CVC Capital Partners and is the second private equity-owned Dutch firm after semiconductor company NXP [NXP.UL] that is planning a stock listing this year.

“The sale could be to a financial or strategic party, but a listing has our preference,” a Van Gansewinkel spokesman said on Tuesday. “We don’t think it will be this year, we think the market will be more favourable for us in 2011.”

An IPO would offer Van Gansewinkel an alternative in what has been a tough market for private buyouts in the Dutch waste sector. Last year Essent scrapped the sale of its waste management unit after failing to attract the offers that would raise the more than 1 billion euros it was hoping for. [ID:nL3456926]

Essent was hoping to sell at more than 6.7 times the unit’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), sources told Reuters at the time. On that basis, with a 2009 EBITDA excluding exceptional items of 259 million euros, Van Gansewinkel would be valued at more than 1.7 billion.

But an infrastructure fund source who worked on the Essent sale cautioned that Van Gansewinkel’s EBITDA multiples would likely be lower because waste is becoming less available driven by a regulatory drive and more recycling.

“Waste in the market is scarcer and more expensive and this hits the cashflows of the contracts,” the source said.

Van Gansewinkel’s spokesman would not comment on the stake the firm could sell or how much it could raise. He said the proceeds would be split among the company and its shareholders.

Van Gansewinkel, which calls itself a top 5 player in Europe, said in its annual results on Tuesday that it aims to build a second home market in Central and Eastern Europe.

It said it plans another foray on the acquisition market in 2010 after its takeover of waste collection unit Leysen from biomass energy company Thenergo (THEB.BR).

Earlier this month, NXP, owned by a consortium that includes KKR and Silver Lake, filed with U.S. regulators for an IPO of up to $1.15 billion as private equity firms comb through their portfolios for firms to take public. [ID:nSGE63F0K3] (Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Aaron Gray-Block; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter) ($1=.7508 Euro)