VERDANT BUYS WASTE SERVICES (UK) LTD TO BUILD FOR THE FUTURE

Sevenoaks, Kent, 1 November 2006 - Independent municipal services contractor Verdant Group plc (www.verdant-group.co.uk) announced today that it has made a strategic investment in the future with the purchase of Waste Services (UK) Ltd, a privately-owned commercial, marine and hazardous waste disposal business with a strong presence in the south.

The acquisition makes Verdant one of the top five largest privately-owned waste and recycling management companies in the UK, keeping it on track to achieve a turnover of £50 million in the next 18 months.

Verdant managing director Simon Miles said: “This strategic acquisition, Verdant’s first, diversifies our core waste and recycling service for municipal sector customers into the commercial waste arena for the first time. We recently began a commercial recycling service in west Sussex, and the Waste Services purchase will enable faster development of this commercial recycling service which we see growing strongly in the next few years as a result of environmental regulation.”

This service expansion will initially be focused on the commercial communities in Verdant’s 15 local authority customer regions.

Based in Southampton, with depots in Bournemouth and Portsmouth, Waste Services (UK) Ltd (www.wasteservices.co.uk) provides commercial waste collection and management services, mainly across the south coast region. Key contracts include on-site waste management at Portsmouth naval dockyards, and waste services for 2 new shopping centre construction projects in Leicester and Bristol, as well as for local universities and schools.

With 65 staff and 45 vehicles generating an annual turnover of around £8 million, Waste Services operates a ‘pay by weight’ commercial waste collection service, with many collection vehicles fitted with weighing systems.

Its core businesses are:

• Commercial and industrial waste collection, disposal and recycling
• Marine waste collection and disposal
• Hazardous, liquid and special waste collection and disposal, including tanker hire, oil recovery, and special and liquid waste processing
• Waste management services, ranging from site clearance to consultancy in the commercial, construction, industrial and marine sectors
• Waste equipment provision and hire, including wheelie bins, vehicles, roll-off containers and tanker hire.

Verdant development director Roger Edwards will become managing director of Waste Services, which will retain its trading name as Verdant’s commercial division.

Waste Services’ management team remain with the business, barring husband-and-wife shareholders Chris and Sue Nutbrown, respectively director and managing director, who will retire after a short handover period. Verdant has no plans for cutting staff or resources, and is confident that further staff will be recruited as the business expands.

Said Miles: “Since being established in 2001 with the Ecovert buyout, Verdant’s growth record shows there is plenty of opportunity for smaller companies in the UK’s waste and recycling sector. We’ve grown our core municipal services business strongly, handling around 20 million waste collections annually and helping many local authorities make significant improvements to their domestic waste and recycling services. For example, we’ve helped increase Melton’s recycling rate in the East Midlands to nearly 50 per cent, and we’ve won three major local authority contracts worth around £10 million annually in the last three months.

“We see significant opportunity to transplant our municipal recycling expertise into the commercial sector where regulatory and reputation pressures are likely to require much more recycling and waste reduction.”

Waste Services (UK) Ltd director Chris Nutbrown: “We believe that Verdant will be able to unlock opportunities not currently available to the business through its existing network of municipal contracts and a highly experienced management team. Our staff look forward to being part of Verdant and the development of the company’s services.“