Biffa Waste Services is one of the UK's largest integrated waste management

Waste management

Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...

 businesses, providing collection

Waste collection

Waste collection is the component of waste management which results in the passage of a waste material from the source of production to either the point of treatment or final disposal...

, landfill

Landfill

A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...

, recycling

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

 and special waste services to local authorities and industrial

Industry

Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

 and commercial

Commerce

While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...

 clients.

History

The business was founded in Wembley by Richard Henry Biffa in 1919. The company, then called Richard Biffa Limited, was engaged in the removal and sale of ashes and clinker from London power stations, later adding sand & gravel and waste disposal to its operations. In 1958 Richard Henry Biffa's 19-year-old grandson, Richard Charles Biffa joined as a general trainee with duties including tea boy, yard boy, fitter's mate, driver's mate and routing clerk. From 1960-1963 he took over responsibility for plant operations and maintenance and was made Manager in 1963. He spent the rest of the decade building the company, now called Biffa Waste Services, by acquisition and organic growth and consolidated the company's position the waste management market. He is also widely credited with introducing the now ubiquitous waste skip to the UK, making Biffa a household name.

In 1971 the company was acquired by British Electric Traction

British Electric Traction

British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rentokil Initial.- Early history :The company was founded as...

. Richard Charles Biffa became Director and Manager of the Waste Division, General Manager of Biffa Limited in 1974, Managing Director in 1975 and Chairman in 1979.

By the 1980s, Biffa was one of the UK's largest and most successful waste disposal companies. In May 1988 the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange with a value of £52 million.

BET sold the company to Severn Trent plc in 1991., The company continued to grow from 1991. Biffa was demerged from Severn Trent plc on 9 October 2006 giving Biffa an initial market capitalisation of £932.4m and a turnover of £712.3million in 2005/6. Biffa made good profits in the first year after flotation.

The company was taken private again in April 2008 by WasteAcquisitionco, a consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

 of three private equity

Private equity

Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

 and investment companies

Investment company

An investment company is a company whose main business is holding securities of other companies purely for investment purposes. The investment company invests money on behalf of its shareholders who in turn share in the profits and losses....

. The deal valued Biffa at around £1.2 billion.