Eight months after the completion of the acquisition of all the activities outside of North America of Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) by SITA, a subsidiary of the Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux Group, SITA and BFI management teams in Spain and Great Britain have been fully integrated and anticipated synergies in these two countries have been realized.

In Spain, a joint subsidiary of SITA and Aguas de Barcelona, has acquired the totality of BFI Iberica's capital. Similarly, in Great Britain the operations of BFI Acquisitions and S.I.T.A. (GB) have been brought together under a new holding company, S.I.T.A. Holding UK.

Following this reorganization, the Boards of Directors of Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), S.I.T.A. Holding UK and SITA have approved the merger of the activities of Northumbrian Environment Management (NEM), a wholly owned subsidiary of NWG specializing in waste services, and those of S.I.T.A. Holding UK. This new grouping confirms SITA's position as market leader in the British waste industry.

This merger extends S.I.T.A. Holding UK's geographical scope and increases its post-collection activities. As a result, the Group's extended treatment capacities in Great Britain are now as follows:

• Landfills (45 sites, disposing in excess of 5 million tons/year),
• 2 domestic waste-to-energy plants (Edmonton and Cleveland with treatment capacities of 50,000 and 250,000 tons/year respectively).

This transaction occurs in accordance with the SITA strategy, which seeks to develop the Group's activities throughout the world and in cooperation with national partners. With the support of its two shareholders SITA and Northumbrian Water Group, a major water distribution group of which 71% of the capital is held by Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, the transaction allows S.I.T.A. Holding UK to consolidate its position in the British market, a market which is of considerable importance as regards the strategy of SITA, the leading European operator in waste services.