Aker Seafoods is expanding into the Spanish fishery industry through the acquisition of a majority stake in Pesquera Ancora in Spain. With this acquisition, Aker Seafoods gains control of four Spanish trawlers with fishing rights.
Pesquera Ancora S.L. has fishing rights in the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) and Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) areas and owns close to 24 per cent of the Spanish quotas in NEAFC. In 2007 this amounts to more than 2,300 tonnes of cod quotas round weight, which corresponds to approximately three Norwegian trawl cod licences. The company also controls 23.8 per cent of the shares in Faeroe Seafood, which operates trawlers and five processing plants in the Faeroe Islands.
With the transaction, Aker Seafoods has also secured permits to land EU fish in transit to its Båtsfjord and Mehamn plants in Northern Norway. This opens up opportunities for increased activity in this region and in Denmark.
The transaction entails the company acquiring 60 per cent of the shares in Pesquera Ancora S.L. The existing owner of Pesquera Ancora, Transpesca S.A., will continue to own 40 per cent of the shares in the company.
“The purchase price for 60 per cent of the shares is EUR 11.5 million, and with no debt this gives an enterprise value of EUR 19.2 million. This price corresponds to the price Aker Seafoods has recently paid for similar vessels and quotas in Norway”, says Yngve Myhre, CEO of Aker Seafoods ASA.
