The majority shareholders at Ice Fish Farm AS and Laxar Fiskeldi ehf have agreed to the former’s acquisition of Laxar and its subsidiaries and the merger of the two Icelandic salmon farming companies
Subject to approval by the board of directors and shareholders of Ice, the purchase will be fulfilled by 37,525,424 newly-issued shares. This will increase the total number of shares outstanding in the company to 91,525,424.
The combined company will hold all granted licenses on the east coast of Iceland with a total maximum allowed biomass (MAB) of 36,800 tonnes, comprising 34,500 tonnes of fertile licenses and 2,300 tonnes of sterile licenses.
In an Oslo stock exchange filing, Ice CEO, Guðmundur Gíslason, said the long-term goal is to create a company that delivers high quality premium salmon with high efficiency and full respect to nature.
“This starts with smolt,” he said. “Both companies have huge capacity in producing large post-smolt to shorten farming time in sea. Second is fjords, sites and licenses, where we now have full access of the areas and can join forces to plan and put up procedures that are going to deliver stable farming results, with emphasis on biological control, feeding, usage of sites and usage of equipment.
“With respect to harvesting, we have already gained synergies and will continue on building up more capacity to handle the increased volume that is coming. We have highly skilled people in both companies that will now put their minds together and make a plan for the future.”
The combined production for 2021 is expected to exceed 15,000 tonnes HOG, including some volumes originally planned for 2022 but which were accelerated to 2021.
It is expected that the board of directors will consider the combination and enter into a binding agreement by no later than the end of January 2022, and that the transaction will conclude by end of the first-quarter
