Redeem seeks bigger Euro presence with acquisition

A CONSUMER electronics recycling firm in Falkirk has made its first acquisition since undergoing a management buy-in at the beginning of the year.

Redeem, which also has operations in Dublin and Hong Kong, has snapped up a recycling and data security company headquartered in Staffordshire that will give it access to a growing market helping corporates to dispose of smartphones, which can carry a lot of confidential information.

Curt Hopkins and Pete Petrondas, who took over Redeem in January with the backing of investor Trevor Bayley, say Burton-on-Trent-based Environmental Mobile Control (EMC) will also give them a bigger footprint in Europe as it comes with operations in Denmark and Norway.

The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, is expected to boost Redeem's turnover by some 4 million this year and adds a further 35 people to its existing global workforce of 100.

Last year, revenues at Redeem reached 20m but Hopkins and Petrondas said EMC's business offered "much higher" net margins than the company's existing activities, which include recycling electronic gadgets from firms such as Boots and Sainsbury's, and operating two consumer mobile phone recycling websites.

Hopkins, who is chief executive of Redeem, said the firm's main aim is to grow organically but he did not rule out further acquisitions as it aims to become the European market leader in electronics goods recycling.

"If there are specific opportunities to consolidate the market then we will look at them further," he said.

Recycling of electronic goods such as mobile phones, laptops and printer cartridges is a growing market as companies come under pressure to reduce their environmental footprint.

With the advance of devices such as smartphones and tablets, data security is also becoming an issue for companies, Hopkins said.

Hopkins was managing director of mobile giant Vodafone's business services unit while Petrondas was the founder and chief executive of Envirofone.

They bought Redeem from its founders Jamie Rae and David McCabe with the help of Bayley, one of the founding partners of HgCapital. Bayley is now chairman of Redeem.