Veolia Environment Sells Off Water and Wastewater Business

By Marc Castro

Mar 28, 2013 10:56 AM EDT

Veolia Environment has sold its water and wastewater business to Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd. Europe's biggest water company sold its business for Eur95 million or US$121 million in an effort to cut its debt.

The divestment would cover a subsidiary, specifically Veolia Water's CGEP operations currently holding concessionary contracts to provide services for public water and wastewater. The contracts serve 270,000 located in northern Portugal. The proceeds of the sale would be used to pay for the outstanding debts of the program and the overall company.

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd is listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and operates large scale water treatment operations, especially waste water treatment in mainland China.

In another announcement, Veolia would be cutting 10% of its workforce at its water division in France. According to CEO Antoine Frerot, this is just part of the two year austerity plan to lower debt and scale back its overall global operations. In 2012, the company sold Eur3.7 billion of assets and is expecting to further increase the divestments to Eur6 billion.

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