April 23, 2024
Today at
9:30 PM
The Antwerp mineral giant is taking over the American glass recycler Strategic Materials, which emerged from bankruptcy at the beginning of this year. It is Sibelco’s first step in this business in the United States.
Sibelco has been expanding its glass recycling arm for some time. In a few years, the Antwerp group grew into one of the largest glass recyclers in Europe.
The group processes more than 3 million tons of glass waste annually into high-purity glass shards (recycled glass) through 23 recycling facilities. At the end of 2022, the share of recycled glass in group revenues was 6 percent, and at the end of September 2023 it was approximately 12 percent.
The Antwerp group is now also active in glass recycling in the United States through the acquisition of Strategic Materials. It is not known how much Sibelco will pay for this.
Strategic Materials operates in the US, Canada and Mexico, where it recycles and sells glass to manufacturers of glass packaging, fiberglass insulation, highway beads, abrasives and flat glass. It has 42 factories and offices in those three countries and processes 2 million tons of glass annually.
Chapter 11
The Strategic Materials branch in the United States filed for protection against its creditors last year. The Canadian and Mexican subsidiaries were not part of the bankruptcy process. The Chapter 11 proceedings came to an end in December.
When that procedure began, Strategic Materials was carrying $432 million in debt. After Chapter 11, the company had reduced debt by $300 million and raised approximately $60 million in fresh capital.
In an interview with De Tijd in mid-2022, Sibelco CEO Hilmar Rode said that the mineral giant would expand its position in glass recycling step by step. ‘First in Europe and later perhaps the US and Asia. In the long term, glass recycling should become as important as our quartz sand and minerals business,” he said.
