Cory Environmental

In April 2005, Montagu Private Equity led the management buyout of Cory Environmental. Cory was a 100% owned subsidiary of Exel, plc, whose main business was logistics and supply chain management.

Cory as one of the UK's leading waste management companies. It owned nine landfill sites across the UK, and had contracts for recycling, street cleaning and waste collection stretching from Lincolnshire to Cornwall. It was best known for operating barges on the River Thames. Around 15% of London's waste is transferred by barge, removing 100,000 lorry movements per year from London's roads. Cory had an excellent record of revenue and profit growth, was well invested and had a strong position in its markets.

Montagu was attracted to Cory because of its contracted revenue streams, well-placed landfill sites and its very experienced and highly regarded management team.

Montagu's early identification of this opportunity, our longstanding relationship with the management team and open dialogue with the vendor throughout the process, were all key to the success of our investment.

In March 2007 Montagu sold Cory for £588 million (enterprise value) to a consortium of long term infrastructure investors consisting of ABN AMRO Global Infrastructure Fund (ABN AMRO GIF), Finpro SGPS and Santander Private Equity, on behalf of Santander Infrastructure Funds I and II. This resulted in a multiple of over five times the original cost of our investment.