Seafood trader plans name change and has ambitious acquisition intentions for northern bluefin tuna ranching operations.
Atlantis Group hf, a multinational aquaculture company and wholesale trader of farmed seafood worldwide, with a key market in Japan, has exchanged all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of its wholly owned northern bluefin tuna (NBT) aquaculture subsidiary, Kali Tuna for newly issued restricted shares of Lions Gate Lighting Corp, a US publicly traded Nevada corporation.
Simultaneously, Lions Gate has raised gross proceeds of approximately $7.3 million (€5.8 million) through the issuance of 7.3 million shares and approximately 1.4 million warrants in a private placement offering.
Lions Gate intends to change its name to Umami Sustainable Seafood Inc as soon as possible. The stock of the company will continue to trade on the OTC Bulletin Board under the ticker symbol LNLT until the company's name change is cleared by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
The cornerstone of Umami will be Kali Tuna, an established NBT aquaculture operation located in the Croatian territorial waters of the Adriatic Sea. Kali Tuna has been in operation for approximately 15 years.
Initially, the company will continue to market a substantial proportion of its production in Japan utilising the Atlantis Group as its sales agent.
It said it will utilise the proceeds of the private offering, along with additional issued shares, to fund acquisitions of NBT farming operations, increase working capital to fund growth of its existing business and fund research and development in tuna farming technology primarily related to reproduction of NBT and feeding programmes.
Oli Steindorsson will be the chairman and CEO of the company.
Steindorsson has over 15 years experience in the fishing industry and has been a director of Kali Tuna since 2005 and the CEO of the Atlantis Group since 2004.
He is a native of a fishing village in Iceland and has grown up in and worked in the fishing industry all of his life. He moved to Japan at the age of 17 and, in addition to his experience in fishing and aquaculture, has become an expert in the Japanese fish trading and marketing industry.
"Building on the Croatian success of Kali Tuna and our sales expertise, we intend to become the leader of the Northern Bluefin Tuna industry," said Steindorsson. "We have a tremendous operating company with many experienced people and the capital and opportunities to grow the company.
“The growth of Umami will be founded on the sustainable management of resources and economically sound practices of Kali Tuna, seeking opportunities resulting from market consolidation and scientific progress in the field. Umami will do its best to leverage the trust in key markets built by its majority owner Atlantis Group. We are already in negotiations with companies which we view as important targets in our strategic plan and expect to finalize these negotiations in the coming months."
