Two informed industry sources said this week that multinational waste management company Veolia has completed its purchase of Piketon, Ohio-based Wastren Advantage for an undisclosed sum.
The sources said the deal closed on Jan. 16 following federal approval of the U.S. Department of Energy’s foreign-owned, control, or influence (FOCI) analysis.
News of the pending deal was first reported last August. No Veolia officials were willing to speak on the record this week.
Veolia is reportedly retiring the Wastren Advantage name. The former Wastren and other Veolia Nuclear Solutions operations currently doing business in the U.S. government marketplace will be housed within a new U.S. umbrella affiliate called VNS Federal Services LLC.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions consolidates its parent company’s nuclear businesses. Billy Morrison, Nuclear Solutions head of North America operations, will add the title of CEO of VNS Federal Services, according to the Veolia website. Wastren Advantage CEO Steve Moore will stay on as chief operating officer of VNS Federal Services, and report to Morrison, sources said.
While it was unclear how many Wastren Advantage employees are involved, an Internet search placed the Wastren workforce somewhere between 200 and 500 people. A source said VNS Federal Services will have a workforce of more than 600 people.
VNS Federal Services will have two main offices: one in Richland and another in Piketon.
Incorporated in 1992, Wastren now works at several Department of Energy locations, including managing sampling and analytical services at the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site near Richland. The company also provides technology and cybersecurity services at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant cleanup in Kentucky and has been a prime contractor or subcontractor, performing a variety of services for years, at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, according to the Wastren website.
Wastren is the second deal Veolia has made involving the North American nuclear cleanup market in the past two years. In April 2016, it completed the $350 million acquisition of Kurion, a California-based nuclear waste cleanup technology firm.
Veolia saw Wastren Advantage as a “good project management company” with a “good footprint” in the federal cleanup business, a source said Monday. Veolia is aggressively getting into the market for U.S. government cleanup and remediation services, both sources noted.
Paris-based Veolia is a $30 billion company involved in water, waste management, transport, and energy services. It bills itself as one of the largest waste services companies in the world.
Veolia’s Nuclear Solutions unit is an active market player in nuclear facility remediation and treatment of low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste. In March 2017, Veolia Nuclear Solutions landed a contract to treat water contaminated with radioactive materials at four nuclear plants in the United Kingdom being decommissioned by Magnox Ltd.
