How will seafood M&A pan out in 2025? Leading investment advisors offer their views

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More than 75 seafood mergers and acquisitions were reported last year by IntraFish.

Top investment advisors in the seafood sector are optimistic about a rise in M&A activity in 2025 following a strong 2024.

More than 75 seafood mergers and acquisitions were reported last year by IntraFish, from strategic investments and acquisitions of significant minority stakes to full-blown, billion-dollar takeovers.

Jorgen Horntvedt, partner at Seafood Corporate Advisors, a Norway-based Seafood M&A and strategy firm, expects 2025 to be a busy year for M&A in the seafood space, in part because the underlying market for closing deals is good, he said.

Stock markets and debt markets are currently strong, aspects which lead companies to want to strengthen their operations and scale via M&A, he said.

Sectors likely to experience M&A activity in the coming year include tech-related companies, with buyers in this space typically being venture capital firms, private equity firms and family offices

“The tech sector will continue to grow as salmon farmers continue to benefit from tech advancements,” Horntvedt said.

Feed ingredients, which are strategically important for the industry as a whole, are expected to drive many smaller transactions to scale, he said.

There could also be significant deals between salmon farmers during the year, as these groups want to take advantage of economies of scale, Horntvedt said. Processors also benefit from scale and deals could be seen between them.

Smaller bolt-on deals will also feature high during the year, and M&A here could include salmon farmers looking for companies downstream and those that can supply raw material.

Uncertain times

However, while global stock markets generally are strong, times are currently also unpredictable.

“The seafood sector is resilient and generally does well when markets are more uncertain,” Horntvedt said.

From a US perspective, the improved outlook comes after a strong year of gains in the investment market and with presidential elections now done and dusted, Ignacio Kleiman, managing partner at investment banking firm Antarctica Advisors.

Kleiman said 2024 was a good year for his firm. Since the end of 2023, among others, Antarctica Advisors has advised on Indian supply chain platform Captain Fresh’s acquisition of Polish smoked salmon processor Koral, German food giant Unternehmensgruppe and Theo Muller (UTM)’s move to acquire Polish seafood company Graal Group.

One potential stumbling block, particularly in the United States, Kleiman said, could be the imposition of tariffs by the second Trump administration.

“With regards to the seafood industry, I think one of the questions in the United States, in general, is whether the industry is going to be hit by tariffs,” Kleiman told IntraFish.

Donald Trump, who won November’s US presidential election by defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, has threatened to impose tariffs of at least 60 percent on Chinese goods, as well as 10 to 20 percent on products from other countries.

Such a move would be unlikely to find much support among US industrial seafood buyers and household consumers, who end up footing the bill.

“It must be remembered that 90 percent or so of fish consumption in the United States is imported,” Kleiman said.

While Kleiman said it is currently unclear how the tariff situation will play out, he thinks that if the economy continues as expected and interest rates continue to fall this will help reduce companies’ financial costs and also make M transactions more attractive.

The investment expert said the cost-inefficient seafood industry characterized by many mid-sized and small players would benefit from consolidation between competitors.

“If you manage to control your costs better and maybe even reduce your prices, then the food is a much more competitive protein and that is going to be good for the sector in general, for the industry in general,” Kleiman said.

A great mix of transactions in 2024 showed opportunities in different places and sectors in the fish economy, he noted.

“I think this year I would expect more consolidation in processing and distribution,” he said.

Looking at the wider picture, leading investment firms Barclays, Boston, Morg Stanley and KPMG are largely upbeat about prospects for a revival in mergers and acquisitions in their outlooks, thanks in part to what they expect will be falling interest rates and a more relaxed regulatory climate.

 

SOURCE: IntraFish

 

Atlantic Capes deal makes Northern Wind one of world’s three scallop titans

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‘The main reason why we did it is obviously that they’re a big player in domestic and imported scallops and we’re a big player’ — Ken Melanson, Atlantic Sustainable Catch

Don’t look now but a giant scallop-shaped creature has risen off the coast of the US state of Massachusetts. It’s Northern Wind.

There were multiple motivations for Atlantic Sustainable Catch (ASC) to acquire the downstream division of Atlantic Capes Fisheries and fold it into its New Bedford, Massachusetts-based operation, merging two major US scallop producers to create one giant, Ken Melanson, ASC’s chairman and CEO, told Undercurrent News in an interview on Thursday (Jan. 16).

The deal gives Northern Wind — acquired by Washington, DC-based investment firm Acon and rolled into ASC in October 2021 — a much larger footprint in the scallop arena and makes better use of existing facilities, he said.

Northern Wind will now have combined production of about 20-22 million pounds (9,070-10,000 metric tons) of scallops annually, Melanson estimated. That includes roughly 10m lbs of domestically caught scallops and 10-12m lbs of imported scallops, he said.

That would account for roughly half of all the scallops sold in the US, based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) landings data that shows 16m lbs harvested domestically and NOAA trade data that projects to roughly 26m lbs of imports in 2024.

At a minimum, such numbers would make Northern Wind one of the world’s three largest scallop producers alongside Eastern Fisheries and East Coast Seafood’s Seatrade International, which are also based in New Bedford, sources advised.

“The main reason why we did it is obviously that they’re a big player in domestic and imported scallops and we’re a big player,” Melanson said of the deal involving Atlantic Capes, adding: “With the quotas going to where they’ve been going, and they continue to go down, we’re at like 30% capacity in our facility here.”

The facility Melanson mentioned is Northern Wind’s 120,000-square- foot processing operation in New Bedford, which went through a major $12m expansion in 2019. It’s been upgraded practically every year since, he said.

By relocating Atlantic Capes’ scallop production out of its roughly 60,000-70,000 square foot processing facility in Fall River, New Jersey, the New Bedford plant instead will be able to operate at about 85% of its capacity, Melanson estimated. Fall River will be the plant used to handle other production, including especially co-packing and value-added products, he said.

“We close this deal, and there’s basically no CapEx that we need to do,” he said.

Another motivation for the acquisition was that the companies had little overlap. Melanson said Northern Wind was strong in club store, foodservice and wholesaler relationships, while Atlantic Capes had better ties with small supermarket chains and other retail outlets.

Melanson confirmed that the deal for Atlantic Capes makes ASC a roughly $500m-plus-turnover North American shellfish group as earlier reported by Undercurrent. The acquisition includes Atlantic Capes’ Galilean Seafoods, a large hand-shucking plant in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Overseeing the sale was Barry Cohen, a lawyer who took over as chairman of Atlantic Capes after the death of his brother, Danny, who built up the company. The family was guided in its sale by Antarctica Advisors, a seafood-focused corporate finance boutique, as earlier reported.

Also, as reported earlier, Jeff Bolton — a 21-year executive and the former CEO at Atlantic Capes — has been named president at ASC, though Melanson remains in the top spot as the CEO and chairman of the parent company.

Other management moves are not expected as a result of the merger, Melanson said.

“For the most part, all of the management team [at Atlantic Capes] came along and, we’re a month into it, but it seems to be going well. So yeah, everybody, mostly all of the employees that were working at Atlanta Cape, for the most part, have joined us,” he said.

Holding the highest post at a $500m seafood firm is impressive for Melanson, a New England son who began working in the seafood industry as a fish cutter when he was just 18 — 50 years ago — and co- founded Northern Wind in 1987 along with Michael Fernandes.

The Cohen family will retain its large fishing fleet of 17 vessels, which handle scallops among other species, as part of the deal, Melanson said. But the vessels will maintain a “tether agreement” that commits their scallop catch only to ASC companies.

ASC gained control of the Atlantic Capes Fisheries name for use on products for at least 18 months, Melanson said. However, the company will likely migrate all Atlantic Capes products to be sold under NorthernWind’s four main brands: Five Star Premium Scallops; Captain’s Call for Scallops; Mariner’s Choice Scallops; and Sea Spray Scallops.

However, Melanson said Northern Wind would add a new brand if itmade sense.

Why the deal took so long

Undercurrent began reporting on talks between ASC and Atlantic Capes as long ago as 2021. It emerged Acon’s ASC was the only remaining bidder for the company in January 2023 before a letter of intent was signed in April of the same year.

Then, during the 2024 Seafood Expo North America in March, sources said talks were still on, and a deal was close. At the time, one executive said an agreement could be reached before the start of the new scallop season in April 2024. This prediction proved to be optimistic as the
deal only closed a few weeks ago.

What took so long?

“It was just a complicated deal, and the reason why it was mostly complicated is because we didn’t buy the whole thing,” Melanson answered. “We didn’t buy all the boats. We just bought the IQF custom packing and the marketing division. So we have to separate a bunch of stuff, and certainly, when you get two people in a room, and somebody thinks it’s worth $5 and you only want to pay a dollar for that particular piece of it, it’s complicated. It just really is.”

He added: The [transition service agreements] and stuff were 40 pages
long for crying out loud.”

But the conditions in the scallop market were ripe for consolidation, Melanson said. As reported by Undercurrent, the New England Fishery Management Council voted, 15-1, on Dec. 5 to recommend a new set of Atlantic scallop harvesting rules that would result in projected landings of 19.75m lbs worth $348.25m during the 2025-26 season, which begins on April 1, 2025.

That would represent a 25.6% reduction from the 24.2m lbs in projected landings for the limited access fleet during the 2024-25 season. However, because the catch this season looks more likely to wind up far less than that projection, next year’s harvest might not compare quite as badly.

“Obviously, we’re going to get a little bit of a haircut in the 2025 quota,” Melanson commented. “You see imported scallops getting more expensive. The price of Japanese scallops went from $9.00 a pound to $15.00/lb. You see now domestic go from $14.00, $15.00/lb to $22.00,” he said.

“Anybody who understands our business knows that you need to buy 80% to 90% of all of your needs in the first month of the season, which is only five, six months. That’s it. And if you don’t cover that then, and you’re trying to buy scallops like they’re doing now or paying these prices, then you’re not in the scallop business.”

Decision pending on future acquisitions

Might ASC soon make other acquisitions? Answer: Melanson said there’s nothing currently in the pipeline but he wouldn’t rule it out.

“We’re always looking for deals,” he said. “When you are with a private equity, that’s what they do.”

Melanson spoke generally about the kinds of acquisitions Acon might make in the future, saying the company wants “to get as close to the resource as possible and get to the end user deep, deep into the market on the retailer side.”

Melanson was careful to note that ASC sells other products, too, including squid, tuna, clams, crawfish, mahi-mahi, snow crab, and alligator meat. The two key species, however, are scallops and lobster, he said.

 

SOURCE: Undercurrent News.

Captain Fresh closes deal for EU salmon processor Koral

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India’s Captain Fresh has closed the buyout of European salmon processor Koral from Abris Capital Partners

India’s Captain Fresh has closed the buyout of European salmon processor Koral from private equity (PE) Abris Capital Partners, the latter confirmed.

Captain Fresh’s deal for Koral, based in Poland, closed on Dec. 23, after an agreement was inked on July 26, subject to competition authority approval. In December 2023, Undercurrent News revealed Captain Fresh was working on buying Koral, a smoked salmon specialist with turn over of around $130 million, from Abris.

The PE firm will take a stake in Captain Fresh as part of the deal, it announced on LinkedIn.

Koral was formerly part of the Polish seafood group Graal, which Abris divested to German dairy giant Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller in November. The deal was first announced in February 2023, with the competition authority reviewing taking so long due to the crossover with Muller’s Lisner canned seafood business.

Antarctica Advisors and Rothschild & Co acted as co-advisors to Abris and Graal founder Boguslaw Kowalski.

“The transaction sees Abris partner with Captain Fresh, India’s leading tech-led seafood supply chain company backed by major global venture capital investors. Koral will become a key platform for the international market development of salmon products within the Captain Fresh group, in which Abris will take a stake,” said Abris.

The transaction with Captain Fresh follows a seven-year investment period, during which Koral has grown revenues and earnings despite challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical challenges, said the PE firm.

Captain Fresh is in the process of raising another $100m in growth capital, on a path to an initial public offering in 2025.

In February, the company acquired US-based shrimp and frozen seafood importer Central Seaway Company. Back in 2023, Captain Fresh acquired the French shrimp cooker Senecrus.

Utham Gowda, CEO and founder of Captain Fresh, told Undercurrent more about the rationale for the Koral deal back in August.

“The plan is to have multi-species and multi-origin exposure. This is our entry into the Atlantic Ocean side of the business,” said Gowda, a former investment banker who founded Captain Fresh in 2020.

“Of course, we start with salmon. But our excitement goes beyond salmon as far as Atlantic species are concerned,” he told Undercurrent earlier in the year.

The next step is to move more into salmon, “then also whitefish and several other categories along the way,” said Gowda.

Koral will also give Captain Fresh a foothold in salmon to cross-sell into CenSea’s US network. However, the next step is to buy a US processor doing salmon and other seafood focused more on value added products than smoked.

“That’s [cross-selling salmon] the immediate opportunity we are evaluating. We are also looking at adding one such [secondary processing] facility on the US side as well because that gives us a complete package from a delivery standpoint in terms of products, said Gowda.

 

SOURCE: Undercurrent News

Canned fish consolidation: Muller’s Lisner closes deal for Graal

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German dairy giant Theo Muller’s has closed a long- awaited deal for Polish canned processor Graal via its Lisner subsidiary

German dairy giant Unternehmensgruppe Theo Muller’s has closed a long-awaited deal for Polish canned processor Graal via its Lisner subsidiary, which was finally given the go-ahead by competition authorities in September.

The deal — first announced in February 2023 — does not include the Koral salmon smoking and processing business, which India’s Captain Fresh is awaiting approval to purchase.

“Today, we have finalized the acquisition of most of the Graal Group’s business related to the categories of cans and ready meals. This transaction opens up incredible new growth prospects for us, redefining what it means to be a leader in our industry!”posted Lisner on LinkedIn. Dairy giant Muller, which has a turnover of over €9 billion ($9.74bn), acquired canned seafood supplier Lisner in
2010.

Antarctica Advisors and Rothschild & Co acted as co-advisors to Graal’s former owners, private equity Abris Capital Partners and founder Boguslaw Kowalski.

Captain Fresh’s deal for Koral, announced on July 26, is also awaiting clearance from the Polish antimonopoly office. However, it should be noted that Captain Fresh does not currently have any salmon operations, so the deal is expected to close soon.

When the sale agreement of Graal to Muller was announced, the Polish company was reported to have a turnover of PLN 1.6bn (€350 million) in 2022, including Koral. So, the company Muller is getting closer to adding to its portfolio, which will have a revenue of roughly €220m, given Koral’s estimated sales turnover of €130m.

 

Seafood M&A stories that will define 2025’s consolidation landscape, part 1

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Many of Undercurrent News’ major scoops on seafood mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from last year are on story trends that will run into 2025.

Last year was a dynamic one for seafood M&A, with ACON Investments, Captain Fresh, Cooke and Pacific Seafood Group all getting big deals over the line by the end.

However, other big, planned sales, such as US at-sea pollock processor American Seafoods Group (ASG), European seabass and seabream farmer Avramar Seafood, or EU salmon processor Milarex, are on ice or in the works as 2025 gets underway.

As the year closed, UK private equity CapVest Partners’ foray into US smoked salmon production was also on hold.

Then, other major stories — such as the consolidation fest in processing in the US state of Alaska or Japanese seafood companies looking to global M&A — look set to accelerate in 2025.

Below, Undercurrent has highlighted several M&A scoops or story trends that will continue to make waves in 2025. Look out for the second part of this story shortly.

Can Bregal find a $1bn-plus buyer for American Seafoods in 2025?

Bregal Partners, the controlling shareholder in ASG, the largest at-sea pollock processor, halted yet another sale process mid-year as offers reportedly fell below $1 billion.

The cause of the drop in valuation, which saw Bregal and US investor Beach Point Capital Management end talks, was the weakness in pollock fillet and surimi prices in 2024. There are already signs that fillet prices are rising, and surimi has hit the bottom, which could bode well for a Bregal exit from ASG in 2025.

Meanwhile, as first reported by Undercurrent in December 2024, former CEO Einar Gustafsson is mounting a bid for ASG. According to sources,

Gustafsson plans to involve several other parties in his bid, with one reportedly an Alaskan community development quota group, Coastal Villages Regional Fund (CVRF).

A spokesperson for CVRF told Undercurrent it’s not involved in “active negotiations” for ASG but is interested in getting bigger in pollock. Gustafsson has not responded to requests for comment. Watch this space in 2025.

What next for Acon after finally closing Atlantic Capes deal?

After Undercurrent first reported a formal sale process for US clam and scallop giant Atlantic Capes Fisheries back in 2021, a deal finally closed at the end of last year from US investment firm Acon.

Undercurrent was the first to reveal Acon had netted the downstream part of AtlanticCapes with its AtlanticSustainable Catch (ASC)platform. ASC consists of Northern Wind, a large US scallop processor, and two Canadian lobster firms, Suncoast Seafood and Raymond O’Neill & Son Fisheries.

With US scallop supply low in 2024 and set to drop further in 2025, all eyes in the sector will be on what Acon does with Northern Wind and Atlantic Capes.

Captain Fresh aims for 2025 IPO after CenSea, Koral buyouts

Highly prolific Antarctica Advisors worked on the sell side of AtlanticCapes for the Cohen family, having also been involved in two dealsinvolving India’s Captain Fresh in 2024, for Koral and Central SeawayCompany (CenSea). Undercurrent covered both deals from sale process to close.

Utham Gowda, founder and CEO of Captain Fresh, gave Undercurrent some insight into his future M&A and business development plans in an exclusive interview in August 2024.

Gowda spoke of going into US salmon processing, having closed its deal for Polishsmoker Koral at the tail-end of 2024. Undercurrent first reported the agreement in July, having revealed Captain Fresh was in talks to buy the salmon smoker at the end of 2023.

Then, it seems an initial public offering (IPO) will also be on the cards in 2025. Gowda is reportedly eyeing a valuation of as much as $ 1.5bn for the IPO. He first told Undercurrent of the IPO plan in March 2024, during the annual Seafood Expo North America (SENA) show in Boston, Massachusetts.

SENA was a milestone for Captain Fresh, as Gowda had just closed the long-awaited deal for CenSea, a frozen shrimp importer based near Chicago, Illinois, at the end of February. In June2023, Undercurrent
First reported that the Feigon family, who built up CenSea, was eyeing a sale, with Antarctica recruited to run the process. Then, also in June,
Undercurrent first reported that Captain Fresh was looking at CenSea.

In early 2024, Undercurrent also revealed that Captain Fresh had quietly entered the European shrimp sector in 2023 with a deal forSenecrus, a 40-year-old, Paris-based shrimp cooker and distributor.

Alaska M&A: Silver Bay on offensive, Peter Pan collapse, Trident fire sale

The forced consolidation in the Alaska processing sector looks set to continue in 2025 after a frenetic 2024. On Nov. 20, 2024, Undercurrent reported that Silver Bay was in talks to take control of OBI Seafoods’ 10 plants and buying stations in the US state.

The planned deal from Silver Bay, which sources said is in the works for 2025, came at the end of a frenetic year of forced M&A in the state. Silver Bay, owned by a group of Alaska fishermen, took control of Peter Pan Seafood, which spectacularly imploded in the year.

At the end of 2024, Pacific Seafood Group also closed a big move in Alaska, buying Trident Seafoods’ large plant in Kodiak.

The Trident-Pacific Kodiak deal was one of four the Seattle, Washington-based giant did in 2024 in a dramatic fire sale — after offloading facilities in False Pass, Petersburg, and Ketchikan.

Silver Bay bought the Ketchikan plant with E.C. Phillips & Son taking Petersburg. The Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association, known as APICDA, partnered with Silver Bay on the deal for the former Trident False Pass plant. Undercurrent first reported APICDA’s involvement in the deal earlier in the year.

European bass, bream giant to be sold in Q1

A major piece of European M&A is set to close in Q1 of 2025, whichwill bring a new investor into the seabass and seabream sector.

The United Arab Emirates-based firm Aqua Bridge Group is in advanced negotiations to acquire distressed aquaculture company Avramar’s Greekassets, though a deal has yet to be finalized, sources familiar with the process told Undercurrent on Dec. 17.

Negotiations seem to point toward Aqua Bridge buying all of Avramar’s Greek assets, including fish farms, operating licenses, and plants. The Spanish assets would remain under the control of Avramar’s current main shareholder, AMERRA Capital Management.

In October, Undercurrent reported that Abu Dhabi’s MubadalaInvestment Company, previously Avramar’s second major investor, exited its equity stake, selling its shares to Amerra.
Undercurrent covered the sale process, run by Deloitte, from the start.

Also, in 2024, Turkey’s Kilic Holding formally announced the acquisition of Agromey, one of the country’s largest producers of bassand bream.
Undercurrent first reported the prospect of a deal — whichwill take Kilic to around $500m — in 2023.

Where will Cooke look next on M&A after bumper fishmeal buyout?

Canadian seafood giant Cooke had a quiet 2023 and 2024 on M&Auntil the end of November, when it closed the buyout of CorporacionPesquera Inca (Copeinca), one of Peru’s largest fishmeal and fish oil companies.

Undercurrent first reported Cooke was in the running forCopeinca back in July, with Dutch seafood giant Parlevliet& Van der Plas also in the hunt at the time.

Cooke will likely look”everywhere” at more M&A in2025 but will also take some time to digest Copeinca, sources said. In 2023, Cooke only made one deal, Slade Gorton & Co. The year before, Cooke moved into Australian salmon farming, snapping up Tassal Group.

 

SOURCE: Undercurrent News

US investor Acon finally closes Atlantic Capes buyout to create $500m shellfish platform

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Acon has closed its long-awaited buyout of the downstream division of US scallop giant Atlantic Capes with its Atlantic Sustainable Catch company, which also owns Northern Wind.

Private equity (PE) ACON Investments has closed its long-awaited buyout of the downstream division of US scallop giant Atlantic Capes Fisheries with its Atlantic Sustainable Catch (ASC) company, sources told Undercurrent News.

Washington, DC-based Acon closed the ASC deal for Atlantic Capes on Monday, Dec. 23, creating a $500 million-plus-turnover North American shellfish group. Acon moved into seafood in October 2021 with deals for US scallop processor Northern Wind and two Canadian lobster companies, Suncoast Seafood and Raymond O’Neill & Son Fisheries.

The deal sees Acon-owned ASC acquire Atlantic Capes’ land-based clam, scallop, and value-added seafood assets while the Cohen family keeps its large fishing fleet.

Atlantic Capes has a scallop marketing and processing company in Fall River, New Jersey. Northern Wind already
operates a large plant on the waterfront in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the US scallop capital. In addition, the deal includes Atlantic Capes’ Galilean Seafoods, a large hand-shucking plant in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Antarctica Advisors advised the Cohen family on the sale of Atlantic Capes. The company was built by the late Danny Cohen, who was succeeded by his brother Barry, a lawyer by profession.

Executives with Acon, Antarctica, ASC and Atlantic Capes were not immediately available for comment to Undercurrent.

Undercurrent first reported a formal process for Atlantic Capes back in 2021, with Antarctica running the sell side. Then, in January 2023, it emerged Acon’s ASC was exclusive, before a letter of intent (LOI) was signed in April last year.

Undercurrent first reported a formal process for Atlantic Capes back in 2021, with Antarctica running the sell side. Then, in January 2023, it emerged Acon’s ASC was exclusive, before a letter of intent (LOI) was signed in April last year.

A deal was widely anticipated after the LOI was signed, but nothing emerged, and many assumed the two sides had broken off talks. Acon’s long-awaited deal to unite US scallop giants still in works US wholesale scallop prices

Then, during the 2024 Seafood Expo North America in March, sources said talks were still on, and a deal was close. At the time, one executive said an agreement could be agreed before the start of the new scallop season in April. This prediction proved to be optimistic, with discussions still ongoing four months later.erer

 

SOURCE: Undercurrent News.

Camanchaca will pay nearly $90 million for remaining stake in Pesca Sur

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Camanchaca and Grupo Bio Bio sought arbitration to resolve a disagreement relating to the sale of a 30 percent stake in Camanchaca’s Pesca Sur pelagic division.

Chilean seafood giant Camanchaca will have to pay $87.2 million (€80.5 million) to acquire the 30 percent stake in its PescaSur fisheries division it doesn’t already own.

Camanchaca and Grupo Bio Bio sought arbitration to resolve a disagreement relating to the sale of a 30 percent stake in Camanchaca’s Pesca Sur pelagic division.

Camanchaca currently owns 70 percent of Pesca Sur and Bio Bio 30 percent.

Under an agreement, Camanchaca is obliged to acquire Bio Bio’s full stake should it opt to sell. In mid-September, Bio Bio informed Camanchaca of its intention to do so.

Bio Bio will receive payment via dividends distributed through Camanchaca Pesca Sur.

Two unnamed investment banks working as arbitrators, delivered an average valuation of $290.75 million (€268.4 million) for PescaSur as a whole, Camanchaca said in a note to the Santiago Stock Exchange.

The companies themselves put widely differing vales on Pesca Sur, with Bio Bio valuing the division at $93.2 million (€90.2 million) and Camanchaca offering $48 million (€46.5 million).

Under the terms of the agreement with valuations varying by more than 10 percent, the sale price would have to be adjudicated by an investment bank or a mutually agreeable expert.

The Camanchaca Pesca Sur Division boasts a fleet of five deep-sea purse seine vessels and four crustacean fishing vessels. It also operates four separate canning, frozen products, crustaceans and fishmeal and fish oil processing plants.

Camanchaca CEO Ricardo Garcia told attendees at the North Atlantic Seafood Forum in March that the acquisition will be the largest by the company “in years, “bringing the profitable and growing division fully under its control.

Camanchaca Pesca Sur was established as a joint venture between Camanchaca and Chile’s Stengel family in 2011. The division harvests and processes primarily jack mackerel, sardines and anchovies. Camanchaca Pesca Sur primarily serves the African market.

Miami-based Antarctica Advisors advised the sellers on the transaction.

 

SOURCE: Intrafish