Veolia Environnement becomes operator and majority shareholder of the company that manages all this German city's environmental services.

The municipal council of the City of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony (250,000 inhabitants, north-west Germany) has just approved the sale of 74.9% of the Braunschweig city service provider company "Braunschweiger Versorgungs-AG" (BV-AG) to Veolia Environnement. The city will retain 25.1% of the capital. The delegated services concern the water distribution, and the management of the municipal heating, electricity and gas network.

Through its subsidiary Veolia Water Deutschland, Veolia Environnement will invest 370 million euros to acquire 74.9% of the company, which has an annual turnover of about 300 million euros.

This project was evaluated in the light of the successful experiences of VE partnerships with public bodies in Germany, that is the stadtwerke of Görlitz and Weisswasser (Saxony), or the 400 other German municipalities, which have already chosen Veolia Water as operator of their water management service.

In a communiqué, the mayor of Braunschweig, Dr Hoffmann, stated:

"Veolia Environnement, a solid group operating around the world, isalready a partner of recognised quality for numerous municipalities in Germany and haspresented a development project of great interest to our municipal company."

Declared Henri Proglio, CEO of Veolia Environnement :

"Such level of trust from the city of Braunschweig shows both a recognition of the work accomplished by our German teams towards servicing public bodies, and a milestone in our development in that country, "

Through BV-AG, Veolia Environnement will strengthen its regional implantation in the western part of Germany, and will offer a complete set of environmental services to municipalities and companies in the Länder of Lower Saxony and Hesse, where the industrial fabric is very dense and 5 million inhabitants live.

Veolia Environnement manages, in partnership, the water and wastewater services for the city of Berlin, as well as services for the towns of Gera, Döbeln, Merseburg, Görlitz, Bad Münder and over 400 other municipalities, particularly in the Länder of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony -altogether a population served of over 5 million inhabitants.

Veolia Environnement is the largest private bus and regional train operator in Germany. Veolia Environnement is also active in the waste management and energy services segments.

In 2003, Veolia Environnement had a consolidated turnover in Germany of 1.2bn euros with a workforce of 15,000.