Johnsons Aggregates secures £10m funding package

East Midlands-based Johnsons Aggregates secured a £10m funding package to support the construction of the UK’s most technically advanced plant for recycling incinerator bottom ash (IBA), and the company’s long-term growth plans. BGF provided £5m of equity capital and NatWest provided a further £5m debt facility.

The new £11m recycling facility, located on a seven-acre freehold site in Stanton, Derbyshire, will be fully operational by early 2017.  Johnsons currently recycles around 150,000 tonnes of IBA every year. The new plant increases this capacity to 450,000 tonnes per annum.

IBA is created by Energy-from-Waste facilities during the process of converting household and commercial waste into energy. This incineration process creates IBA which is deemed a waste product historically sent to landfill.  Johnsons extracts metals from the IBA and turns the residue into a quality aggregate suitable for the construction industry thereby avoiding any material going to landfill.

Britain falls significantly behind other European countries in its IBA recycling capacity. The industry is heavily regulated and Johnsons is one of a very limited number of companies in the UK with the capability to recycle IBA. Johnsons will operate one of the most advanced IBA facilities in the world, providing the highest levels of extraction of recyclable materials.

Founded as an aggregates business by CEO Steve Johnson in 1999, the business will also use BGF’s funding to pursue organic growth across its other services, which include the supply of virgin and recycled materials, and land remediation. The company, which employs 50 people at its existing facilities, achieved annual revenues of £11m in 2015. Jon Earl, who led the transaction for BGF, and Paul Capell, an experienced industry executive, both joined the board.