Normec acquires Belgian AD specialist OWS

Normec Group has acquired OWS, a company specialising in the digestion and treatment processes for the biological treatment of household waste organics, and the biodegradability and compostability of plastic packaging materials.

OWS, based in Gent, Belgium, designs and builds municipal solid waste treatment plants using anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce compost and biogas, and has subsidiaries in the US, Germany, and Japan.

Normec is active in the field of testing, inspecting, certification (TIC) and compliance mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.

The firm’s engineering and plant construction division is currently working on four new projects. In Belgium, two DRANCO plants for the conversion of household waste into biogas and compost are being built in Leuven and Dendermonde, and two plants are under construction in Asia (Chongqing in China and Yorii in Japan).

OWS’s growth path attracted interest from several potential new shareholders. Luc De Baere, managing director at OWS, said: “Over the past year, we have spent time preparing to find a new shareholder for OWS.

“We are delighted that Normec has been able to add us to its group. Together with Normec, we will continue to strengthen and expand our value proposition to our customers, build up our testing capacity, and increase our AD business. We look forward to our future cooperation.”

“We are delighted that OWS has chosen to partner with Normec,” commented Joep Bruins, CEO and founder of Normec. “We are very impressed by the activities of OWS, the developed technology and the market position OWS has been able to acquire.

“We are excited to work together with the management team of OWS and to continue the growth path the organisation has chosen.”

The transaction closed at the end of October. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.