The sale chips away at another portion of what used to be a massive aquaculture empire.

Norwegian shipping, oil and seafood giant Stolt-Nielsen has reached a deal to sell its Sterling Caviar division to land-based bass and sturgeon producer Hyde Road Agricultural Associates, a source familiar with the sale told IntraFish.

Sterling Caviar owns and operates four white sturgeon farms in Sacramento, California. In 1983 it became the first commercial sturgeon farming operation in California, and has long been a part of the Stolt-Nielsen operation.

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Despite completing deals to expand their supply lines in Northern Europe and North America, major Asian trading giants such as Maruha Nichiro or Nippon Suisan Kaisha are unlikely to take any interest — at least for the immediate future — in buying wild catch enterprises in Spain and Latin America, top financial advisors told Undercurrent News.

Speaking on Undercurrent’s “What COVID-19 Means for Seafood M&A” webinar on June 4, Jose Antonio Zarzalejos — a partner with banking house “It’s not a coincidence that Nomura had the sales side mandate for Iberconsa. They were very clear they wanted to attract interest from Asian buyers, but that didn’t happen.”

Ignacio Kleiman, managing partner at the boutique seafood advisory firm Antarctica Advisors, echoed Zarzalejos’ thoughts on the Iberconsa sale.

“The issues that you have with Asian buyers in many cases are due to scale and often a lack of management capability,” he told Undercurrent. “Even though they are good traders and they purchase products from around the world, they do not [usually] have the management capability expertise for cross-border [deals], to go and take over a major fishing operation overseas.”

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More diversified global seafood players like Cooke are needed to bring stability to the industry, said a senior mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisor during an Undercurrent News webinar on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on deals.

Ignacio Kleiman, whose Antarctica Advisors is the most prolific M&A advisory firm according to Undercurrent’s latest Seafood Dealmakers 2020 report, said more players like Cooke would make the sector more robust in riding out global crises.

“Who’s going to be the next Cooke? Clearly, in order to be successful in the world of seafood, you have to be sizeable and you have to be diversified by species. You have to be diversified by currency. You have to be diversified by geography,” he said, on the “What COVID-19 Means for Seafood M&A” webinar.

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The owner of major Argentinian shrimp supplier Continental Armadores de Pesca (Conarpesa) is looking to sell the company, he con rmed to Undercurrent News.

Fernando Alvarez, Conarpesa’s owner and president, said that the company, which generates around $165 million in annual sales, is in talks with potential buyers to sell the major shrimp harvester at a “reasonable price”.

“A year ago, there were rumors that we [Conarpesa] were searching for investors to sell the group. At that time, Antarctica Advisors was doing a study on our company,” he said, adding that the search continues despite the COVID-19 pandemic. “Currently, we are still negotiating and looking for an investor who can ensure business continuity. This may not be the best time to do so, but we have been evaluating this option for a year now,” he said.

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The second-largest rainbow trout farmer in the US, owned by the creator of a multitude of hit TV shows, has a deal for its larger rival, Clear Springs Foods, making it, by far it the largest farmer of the species in the country.

The purchase by Riverence Holdings, the parent company of Idaho’s Riverence Farms, means that the combined vertically integrated farmer will include 14 farms with a total capacity of 15,000 metric tons annually, four brood stations, two processing facilities, a value-added processing arm, waste recovery plant and a feed mill, the company said.

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