Ambienta and Amplio Group sell Envirogen Group

26 October 2015, London – Ambienta SGR (“Ambienta” or the “Firm”), the largest European private equity fund specialised in environmental investments in the areas of resource efficiency and pollution control, is pleased to announce the sale of its portfolio company Envirogen Group, formerly Amplio Filtration Group (“Envirogen” or the “Group”), to a syndicate of investors led by UK fund manager Promethean Investments LLP.

Envirogen Group, established in 2009 by Riccardo Segat and Andrea Davi – who acted as CEO – is a leading UK based mid-sized international provider of environmental and process solutions for the treatment of water, wastewater, vapour emissions and material recovery, with operations in Europe and North America.

Ambienta’s divestment of Envirogen comes four years after its initial €16.1m investment, executed through its fund “Ambienta I”. Ambienta invested to support Amplio Group with the goal to build a scalable international platform in water treatment solutions, focused on well defined high-value verticals.

Leveraging on Ambienta’s support, Envirogen was transformed from a niche UK player to a pocket multinational SME, establishing a broad blue chip customer base through three strategic acquisitions (both in Europe and in the US), while exploiting geographic and technology cross selling synergies. Envirogen’s business offering has grown to serve multinational corporates in numerous sectors with a core suite of patented and proprietary technology. As a result of these initiatives, Envirogen doubled its sales to €50ml, with EBITDA growing from €0.9ml in 2010 to € 6.5ml in 2015, equally distributed between organic growth and contribution from acquisitions.

Mauro Roversi, Chief Investment Officer of Ambienta and lead partner on the transaction, commented: “The investment in Envirogen Group represents a well-structured buy and build project in the highly attractive sector of water management and filtration, underpinned by an increasing focus on environmental sustainability. This deal highlights our core capability in going full circle in the investment cycle – from origination to exit.”

“In the last four years we created a truly international and scalable platform with significant operational leverage, having successfully integrated a series of complementary acquisitions” added Laura Della Chiara, Investment Manager in Ambienta.

Riccardo Segat, founder of Envirogen and CEO of Amplio Group, an holding company investing in growth industries which include energy, alternative fuels, recycling, filtration, environmental services, and specialty healthcare said: “We have been excited to build Envirogen to reach such a platform scale, we are now divesting our water business and refocusing our resources on our energy assets to scale up operation in Japan and also other Asian countries”

Ambienta was advised by the UK Industrials team of Altium.