Otto de Bont, CEO Renewi: “We made three important commitments to our shareholders at the Capital Markets Day in October 2023: optimise our portfolio, build a stronger platform with improved margins and shareholder returns, and drive organic growth. Despite a challenging market environment in commercial waste, we made solid progress on these commitments.
We completed the strategic review of our UK Municipal business, resulting in a sale of our UK Municipal activities to Biffa, immediately improving our. Mineralz & Water is slightly ahead of schedule and we expect to further increase the production volume and quality of new sand, filler and gravel products.
Three key initiatives are focused on strengthening our platform. With the Simplify efficiency programme, we right-sized our SG&A costs. We announced the streamlining of our organisational structure to unlock our growth potential and better utilise our scale by merging Commercial Waste Netherlands and Belgium under single leadership and integrating Mineralz & Water into the Specialities division. Alongside this, we accelerated Future Fit, a multi-year digitisation programme aimed at replacing our legacy IT systems, to give us a strong foundation to improve efficiency and drive growth.
To further drive organic growth, we are progressing in the key sectors set out at the Capital Markets Day, including monostreams like glass, plastics and organics, and mixed waste streams from construction & demolition and commercial & industrial. In addition we are expanding our Ecosmart services, offering customers advice and resources to improve their waste management and reduce their carbon footprint.
Finally, we are recommencing dividend payment as stated before and will propose a dividend of 5p per share, underlining our commitment to our shareholders and confidence in our future.
We celebrated notable client wins across The Netherlands and Belgium, including Schiphol Airport, Rotterdam the Hague Airport, the Ministry of Defence and Custodial Institution Agency, Total Energies, BPost, Limburg and Nike. Partnerships were concluded with Shell Refineries Pernis and Moerdijk for total waste management and Vattenfall for the offtake of Green Gas as of Q1FY25. The wins of SPF Penitentiaire and hospital Mouscron, reflecting our successful approach in the care sector.
We operate in a dynamic sector, where the perception of waste is changing and where our customers realise the carbon footprint they create is impacted by the waste they produce and by the raw materials they use. We help them reduce their footprint, by improving their waste management and by offering them circular materials as alternative to the virgin materials they use today. With our scale, resources and expertise, Renewi is well-positioned to grow in this dynamic sector.