Recycling firm Biffa agrees to private equity takeover

Waste collection and recycling firm Biffa agreed to be taken over today in a private equity deal valuing the company at more than £1.2bn (€1.61).

Biffa’s board backed the 350p a share offer after rejecting a number of other proposals from Montagu Funds over the past four months.

Montagu knows the sector well as it formerly owned Cory Environmental, a rival business with a number of landfill sites and local authority contracts.

Biffa, which was spun off from Severn Trent in 2006, has 86 depots and collects more than four million tonnes of waste a year from around 75,000 industrial and commercial customers and over one million households.