Sortera Norvestor VI LP investment

Norwegian private equity firm Norvestor invests in Sortera Norvestor VI LP, a fund advised by Norvestor Equity AS (Norvestor), has agreed to team up with the founders of Sortera Skandinavien AB (Sortera),one of the leading companies in the Stockholm region within construction related waste. By investing in Sortera, Norvestor will support the continued development of one of the fastest growing companies in the waste handling business in the region, with core business within collection and sorting of waste in heavy duty builder bags. Norvestor and the founders believe in strong market growth through increased use of the more efficient and flexible builder bags.

“We are very excited and pleased about the transaction and to have Norvestor on the team with their significant experience from the waste management sector and Nordic expansion”, says Henrik Westöö, CEO of Sortera, who founded the company together with his childhood friend Conny Ryk. Sortera started up in 2006 with just one employee in addition to the founders. Today the company has approximately 47 employees and revenues of SEK 80 million in 2011. Sortera has since the inception experienced strong growth, and become one of the leading building waste management companies with emphasis on the builder bag segment in the Stockholm region.

Camelot WMC acted on behalf of Norvestor Equity on deal. Staffan Nyberg, Waste Management Consultant led the team, he commented: “The most vital issue was possible constraints to a roll-out by replication in primary and secondary Nordic waste arenas. It turned out that this depended not only on the obvious, such as waste flows and competitive context, but also on more intricate characteristics such as downstream diversity and regulatory structures. In addition the buying rational of the service was by far as straightforward as assumed up-front.”

“We observe today another type of competition in waste management, where traditionally purely local providers have challenged the major waste management companies on price, but where the major force now rather is skilled and dedicated niche companies, which optimize a certain sub-spectrum of services, which enables them to outperform the general suppliers on both customer value and cost efficiency. This applies directly to Sortera, who has also entered the scene at a moment when construction waste recycling promises to take off.”