Waste management firm completes MBO

SME credit fintech Caple and Close Brothers have supported the management buy-out of Serious, a Burton based sewage, grease and waste-water management company.

The investment has enabled existing managing director Jeremy Proctor, who has been running the business for the last four years, to buy out the founding shareholders with the help of two other business partners. The founding shareholders were non-operational.

As a result of the transaction, the business expects to grow by around 50 per cent in the next two years and create up to 20 new jobs.

Dominic Buch, co-founder and managing partner of Caple, said: “Serious is a successful business with an excellent management team.

"To invest in the business that team needed to be able to buy out the retiring shareholders. Our deal demonstrates how we can support a new generation of owners with the finance they need to innovate, implement their expansion plans, and drive growth.

"With the economy still recovering from Covid, we need to support this new generation of owners to provide the growth and jobs that the UK urgently needs. ”

Staffordshire-based Serious serves more than 15,000 commercial and domestic customers from six UK depots. These include Marston 's, Whitbread 's and Admiral Taverns from the pub and leisure industry. Customers also include football clubs such as Everton FC and Wolverhampton Wonderers to local authorities such as Cheshire East, Severn Trent Water and Scottish Water.

Jeremy Proctor, managing director of Serious, said: “Having run the business for the last four years, the management team know what we need to do to grow. Serious has a fantastic customer base and we need to invest due to a growth in sales with some exciting new contracts but to implement these plans we need to take ownership.

"With the help of our new business partners and the funding from Caple and Close Bro 's this has enabled us to complete the MBO, take control of the business and put our plans into practice. ”