Waste oils recycler OSS on the market

West Midlands-based waste lubricating and fuel oils recycling business OSS has been put up for sale by private equity firm Dunedin, with a price tag of £50 million.

Dunedin has received several unsolicited bid approaches from third parties for OSS and has brought in Grant Thornton to help identify future options for the company. Dunedin bought OSS for £15 million in 2000.

The foremost business in its niche, OSS collects most of the 400,000 tonnes of waste lubricating and fuel oils made by workshops and garages in Britain. The waste is then reprocessed before being reused by power stations and smelters.

The path has not always been smooth for OSS - in 2005 the newly introduced Waste Incineration Regulations forced OSS customers to make large investments in order to continue burning its recycled fuel.

Then, in 2007, the Environment Agency disputed in court whether waste-lubricating oil can be processed to become a non-waste substance before being used as a fuel.

The last published accounts for OSS, in 2008, show an impressive 50 per cent jump in turnover to £25 million, and its pre-tax profits increased from £1.62 million in 2007 to £4.6 million in 2008.

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