Citadel Capital acquires two Egyptian solid waste management businesses

The two companies will be grouped under a single holding company, ENTAG Holding, that will serve as the core of Citadel Capital’s platform investment in the solid waste management sector.

Established in 1997, ECARU has contracts to collect and process more than 500,000 tons per year of agricultural solid waste, particularly rice straw. Although the company presently focuses on the conversion of rice straw into compost, it has pioneered a technology to produce animal fodder and is also investigating the feasibility of producing medium-density fibreboard, fuel pellets and paper from rice straw. ECARU also specialises in municipal and agricultural solid waste management. The company’s operations in the South of Cairo are executing a contract to process up to 1,500 tons of municipal waste per day, produce compost and extract recyclable materials.

Citadel Capital principal Karim Ragab said that ECARU became one of the first Egyptian organisations to sign a greenhouse gas emission reduction purchase agreement with the World Bank in the summer of 2008, agreeing to sell 325,480 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emission reductions to the Carbon Fund for Europe.

ECARU’s sister-company ENTAG, established in 1995, specialises in the design, manufacture and erection of solid waste management systems.

Marwan Elaraby, managing director of Citadel Capital, said, “The solid waste management sector is under-developed across the region, with a limited number of large companies operating and much of the waste not being properly treated. There is ample room for geographic expansion and vertical integration, including expansion into waste-based industries.”

Citadel – one of the biggest private equity players in the region, with more than $8bn under management - plans to list its shares on the Egyptian Exchange to raise new capital as it continues to expand.

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