BDA advises Navis on the sale of TES to SK ecoplant

BDA Partners is pleased to announce that its client, Navis Capital Partners, has agreed to sell its stake in TES-Envirocorp Pte Ltd (“TES”) to SK ecoplant Co Ltd, South Korea’s leading environmental service provider. The transaction values TES at US$1.0bn and is expected to close in Q2 2022. SK ecoplant will acquire 100% of TES from Navis and other minority shareholders.

BDA advised Navis on the transaction.

TES is a sustainable IT and battery lifecycle services market leader, headquartered in Singapore. It operates 43 facilities in 21 countries across Asia, North America and Europe. TES provides a one-stop solution to customers for recycling, repurposing, and reusing IT devices and electric vehicle batteries. Navis invested in TES in May 2013. Since then, TES has grown from being an Asia-focused electronic waste manager to a global sustainability solutions provider. Today, TES has a client base comprising many of the world’s leading IT companies, hyperscale cloud providers, multinational corporations, and electric vehicle manufacturers.

Jean-Christophe Marti, Senior Partner at Navis, commented: “Under Navis’s stewardship, TES has grown to become an industry leader with an excellent management team, strong operational processes which have raised the bar for ESG compliance across the industry worldwide, and a global network of facilities to serve its blue-chip clients. TES is ideally positioned to be a key player in the upcoming global energy transition.”

Paul DiGiacomo, Managing Partner, BDA, said: “We’re very proud to have helped Navis to consummate this landmark transaction. This is the 11th exit on which we’ve advised Navis, which is a testament to our long term partnerships with our clients. This is also the fourth sustainability transaction we’ve announced in 2022. We’re committed to investing significantly in our capabilities to do much more in this important area.” 

Howard Lee, Partner, Head of Seoul, BDA, said: “We’re happy to have helped TES align with SK ecoplant as an ideal partner for its next stage of growth and its vision of a more sustainable world. Our ability to add value on transactions like these reflects BDA’s knowledge in the ESG sector and relationships in the Korean market. We’re delighted to work across the table from SK on this transaction, and deliver another meaningful step in which SK ecoplant goes abroad to accelerate growth.”

Lars Freitag, Managing Director of BDA, added: “The transaction is a demonstration of BDA’s ability to help clients solve complex deal issues and navigate multilateral cross-border intricacies. BDA is building significant expertise and a track record in environmental services and green infrastructure and, more broadly, in the ESG space, both across Asia and other regions, including EMEA and North America.”