With the advent of the critical point of merger of Veolia and Suez, Veolia has ushered in the key node of global ecological transformation. In April this year, CALMELS, former Chairman of Veolia Asia, retired at the due age, and Christophe MAQUET took up the new post, taking charge of the overall business management and strategic development of 18,400 employees in 10 Asian countries and regions, including China. Christophe MAQUET is also a member of the Executive Committee and Senior Executive Vice President of Veolia Group. The 42-year-old new chairman, at his “peak period” , has worked and lived in Asia for many years, and has served as a leader in other regions. Now he returned to the familiar Asian market with rich experience in global operation and management. MAQUET will also lead Veolia China to work together with urban and industrial customers, to cope with environmental challenges, realize ecological transformation, and better promote Veolia to achieve its strategic goal of “Impact 2023”.
The “new official” took office, to help the Asia-Pacific region accelerate its growth
Seen from the resume, Christophe MAQUET, like his “predecessor” CALMELS, is an engineer, and has worked for Veolia for many years. Since joining Veolia in 2004, MAQUET has worked in finance, business development and project management departments for 17 years, and accumulated rich experience. From 2013 to 2019, MAQUET was responsible for energy and industrial customers of Veolia Asia, such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Middle East; Since 2019, he has served as Executive Vice President of Veolia Group, being responsible for the overall business of 15 countries and regions in Africa and the Middle East. Thanks to the rich experience in Asia and other regions of the world, MAQUET could fully learn the differences between the Asian market and France and other regions, so as to better help the Asia-Pacific region accelerate its growth.
Despite MAQUET’s rich experience in layman's eyes, the 42-year-old new chairman said firmly and humbly: “I have less experience when compared with CALMELS, and I hope to learn more about Asia and China. Since I took office in April, I have had a lot of communication with regional managers, trying to learn our strengths and weaknesses and how to make use of our strengths to accelerate the growth in the region. I hope to lead Veolia to a new era on the basis of my predecessors. I am looking forward to coming to Chinese mainland as soon as possible, visiting our operating places and meeting our customers, so as to enhance our understanding of Chinese mainland and Asian markets. At present, Veolia’s revenue growth in Asia is the fastest, and its profit ranks second in the world. I am also very happy to witness the rapid growth with all of you, and make my contribution to the sustainable development of Asia and China.”
Then, how to help the Asia-Pacific region accelerate its growth, and lead Veolia to a new era? After all, Veolia, which is already a global water giant, has achieved fruitful results in the Chinese market: in the past five years, Veolia China’s revenue has doubled, and there has been substantial growth in water, waste disposal and energy management. How did MAQUET add brilliance to Veolia’s present splendor?
In MAQUET’s view, choosing partners is the key to the rapid development of enterprise. He said: “As Veolia, we cannot work alone. Our goal is to further strengthen cooperation with all partners, including private enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Cooperation with local enterprises can enable a global enterprise like us to better understand the market, learn local and national policies and regulations, and better find a very suitable solution for local needs. This is what we have always said: globalization plus localization.”
Setting a benchmark to achieve the largest transaction in the global environmental field
As Christophe MAQUET said, the world is facing an ecological emergency. When facing such a vast challenge, a major benchmark company is needed, one that can lead the way for the entire industry. We must form significant partnerships to combine talents, expertise and solutions in order to provide better solutions in environmental protection. The merger of Veolia and Suez provides the possibility for the birth of the world leader in ecological transformation. “The merger of Veolia and Suez is the largest transaction in the global environmental protection industry. Thanks to the addition of 10 billion business from Suez, the Veolia group will have a revenue of €37 billion.” he said.
According to Veolia, the merger has been done since June 29: the consortium of investors with a French majority, consisting of Meridiam, GIP and CDC/CNP Assurances, has submitted its binding final offer to Veolia and SUEZ to purchase the new SUEZ for an enterprise value of €10.4 billion. This valuation includes a potential earn-out of €300 million to be paid at the end of the 2021 fiscal year2. All of the consortium's commitments to maintain all jobs and social benefits have been formally confirmed, as well as those relating to the duration of the holding.
This offer, approved by the Boards of Directors of SUEZ and Veolia on June 29, 2021, enabled Veolia to raise the price of its tender offer for the SUEZ shares not yet held by Veolia to €20.5 per share, coupon attached.
Veolia will retain nearly €10 billion of SUEZ's revenues, including all of the assets designated since last fall as "strategic" for its plan to create a global champion of ecological transformation, in particular its activities in the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States, Latin America, Australia and SUEZ's Water Technologies Services business.
After the merger, Suez will be divided in two parts, Veolia will retain part of Suez’s revenue, and the new SUEZ thus formed would have revenues of nearly €7 billion, including SUEZ's Water and Recycling & Recovery activities in France, international assets in Italy, Central Europe, Africa (including Morocco), Central Asia, India, China and Australia, as well as global digital and environmental activities, enabling it to maintain its growth prospects and innovation capacities in France and internationally.
It should be noted that in terms of water treatment, all Suez’s water treatment businesses in Chinese mainland, including municipal and industrial water projects, are not within the scope of this merger. MAQUET explained: Veolia’s original merger plan was developed out of regulatory and anti-monopoly requirements, hoping to retain Suez’s water business in France only. However, the merger process was not smooth, and Veolia made a lot of compromises in the process, such as keeping Suez’s water business in France, and retaining New Suez’s business in Africa and India, and its water business in Chinese mainland in the original plan. We originally expected to acquire all its business in Asia to form a joint force, but in fact this is the result of negotiations with Suez management.
As the chairman of Asia, MAQUET fully affirmed the significance of this merger: “This transaction is not only very important in scale, but more importantly, it can form a joint force, so that we can jointly cope with the ecological crisis we are facing now. There are three important aspects in this transaction: First, after the merger, Veolia can make more effective investments and better innovation in environmental protection; Second, better integration of talents and resources. Transactions are not only about addition, but more about multiplication, to explore more effective environmental protection solutions; Third, this merger can promote Veolia and local regulators to strengthen exchanges and communication in green development, especially carbon emission reduction.”
“Impact 2023” promotes ecological transformation with strategic goals
Adhering to Veolia’s purpose of “contribute to human progress by firmly committing to the Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”, Veolia has determined for itself the task of realizing “Resourcing the world” through environmental service business. Since the 1980s, Veolia has been committed to helping China improve its ecological environment. For decades, Veolia has invested and operated more than 100 projects in about 40 cities in China, involving water management (including drinking water and sewage treatment), waste management and energy management.
However, we must also realize that, under the background of “double carbons”: peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, China’s current goal is not only waste treatment and environmental protection, but focuses on developing a low-carbon and circular economy. Veolia, with its keen sense of policy market, quickly received this important signal and started to act. MAQUET said that Veolia is promoting its own ecological transformation through the strategic goal of “Impact 2023”, and this merger also gives Veolia an opportunity to better support China’s green development policies. We hope that this merger will enable the two companies to complement each other’s advantages and resources, and better support China’s policy of developing a green economy, MAQUET said. At the same time, this merger can better promote Veolia’s strategic goal of “Impact 2023” set for itself.
From 2020 to 2023, Veolia will vigorously promote corporate social responsibility, which will have a positive, lasting impact on internal and external stakeholders. Among them, ecological transformation, as the ultimate goal of “Impact 2023”, plays an important role in Veolia’s future development strategy.
After Christophe MAQUET arrived, he often brainstormed with senior management and started a plan of "Step up Asia" on issues related to ecological transformation. The dual-carbon goal in the ecological transformation also brings new opportunities to Veolia.
Christophe MAQUET expressed that, the industry, especially the heavy industry, the transportation, the buildings that are the main contributors to the carbon emissions. We need to reform those sectors into green, low-carbon, and promote the circular economy mode. We are already involved in, such as energy efficiency of the buildings of industries, renewable energy, biomass, waste-to-energy, photovoltaic/solar power sites; we also have biofuels, waste heat recovery, material recycling, which is a really important topic, the CO2 capture. In China, by 2020, Veolia’s energy business line reduces nearly 190,000 tons of carbon emissions, while the waste business line avoids 400,000 tons of emissions. We recover energy from sludge at several wastewater plants in Haikou and Urumqi. In Kedong County, Heilongjiang Province, we use biomass to provide heat for local users in winters. In Zhejiang Province, we manage one of the largest rPET plants in China. In Beijing, we oversee the full water cycle in Yanshan Sinopec and reduce fresh water consumption.
Currently, Veolia also operates a CCUS flagship project in India in which we sell carbon products to the local market. Veolia concerns more on how carbon products can be valuable for users than carbon capture. Christophe MAQUET said that Total Energies and Veolia have joined forces to accelerate the development of microalgae cultivation using CO2 with the long-term goal of producing next-generation biofuel. We hope we could share our experience and know-how in this field to keep the green development of the technology.
The ecological transformation as the purpose of Veolia is not just a concept, a slogan, but also the detail of Veolia's various businesses and solutions. This is a conceptual breakthrough and an innovation in the industry. Veolia's ambitious goal is the confidence given and supported by all parties!
Source: Beijixing, July 19, 2021