ISI has announced that its acquisition of Solo Seafood ehf has been completed, stating that this transaction creates an integrated European industry powerhouse with excellent future growth prospects across the whole group.
ISI recently announced the Shareholders approval of granting the board authorisation to issue shares in relation to the acquisition of Solo Seafood ehf.
Solo Seafood is a company owned by Sjávarsýn, FISK Seafood, Jakob Valgeir and Nesfiskur and Icelandic Iberica managing director Hjörleifur Ásgeirsson. FISK, Jakob Valgeir and Nesfiskur hold a significant percentage of the national fishing quotas in Iceland. The combined vendor group will become long-term shareholders and suppliers of ISI.
Icelandic Iberica is one of the leading seafood companies in the South European market. With its extensive product range including bacalao, Argentinian shrimp, cuttlefish and hake and processing capacity in Spain and Argentina, Icelandic Iberica, who over the last twenty years has pioneered the marketing of light salted Icelandic cod in Southern Europe, has seen strong growth in sales and profit in the last few years.
The acquisition produces in combination a Group with sales of more than €400m delivering in excess of €10m in proforma pre-tax profits for 2018 with material synergy benefits and growth within the combined business still to be added.
“It gives us great pleasure to announce the acquisition of Icelandic Iberica Group,” said Iceland Seafood International CEO Helgi Anton Eiríksson.
“It is a significant milestone in our value added strategy of creating an integrated supply chain from source through to the end customer and with the three major Icelandic seafood operators of FISK, Nesfiskur and Jakob Valgeir as major shareholders will create opportunities in Southern Europe and across all territories we serve. I welcome the great employees at the Icelandic Iberica Group to our enlarged ISI group and look forward to growing our whole business further as a result”
With this acquisition Iceland Seafood International continues its strategy of acquiring strong value-added companies in key markets and will now operate 7 value added factories globally. The ISI shareholders of Fisk Seafood, Jakob Valgeir and Nesfiskur, all major players in the Icelandic seafood industry who collectively represent over 10% of the Icelandic quota, operating eight processing factories in Iceland create a fully integrated seafood supply chain serving over 45 countries and more than 3000 customers around the world.
The transaction represents an exciting phase in the development of ISI and presents numerous opportunities for the group to continue its excellent growth rates in the years ahead.
“This is a transformational step for Iceland Seafood to bring together two large European operators and bring opportunities to leverage our sourcing, distribution and production capabilities to the benefit of our group its customers, people, supply partners and shareholders,” said Iceland Seafood International chairman Bjarni Ármannsson.
“I am proud to be a part of this great development and I am excited about our future opportunities.”
