Antarctica Advisors Acts as Exclusive Investment Banking Advisor to Stolt Sea Farm in its sale of Sterling Caviar

/in

November 5, 2020 – Antarctica Advisors LLC, the leading Seafood Industry-focused M&A advisory firm, acted as the exclusive investment banking advisor to Stolt Sea Farm Investments BV (“Stolt”) in its sale of Sterling Caviar LLC (“Sterling”) to affiliates of Hyde Road Agricultural Associates LLC (“Hyde Road”).

Established in 1988 by Jacob Stolt-Nielsen, Sterling became the first sturgeon aquaculture company to sustainably farm raise the specie globally. Today, Sterling Caviar is the leading producer of domestic caviar, serving the most discerning chefs, customers, and caviar connoisseurs both here in the U.S. and abroad.

Read more

Stolt sells US caviar farming division, stripping away a long-held aquaculture operation

/in

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.

Read more

Maruha Nichiro sells Peter Pan Seafoods to PE firm, former owner of Cooke salmon farming operation

/in

The company announced in February it was looking to sell off the company, which traces its roots back to 1898 in Alaska.

Maruha Nichiro-owned Peter Pan Seafoods, one of Alaska’s oldest salmon processing companies, has been sold to a group of investors that includes Rodger May, the former owner of Washington State salmon farms now owned by Cooke Aquaculture, and private equity firm McKinley Capital Management.

Officials at Maruha Capital Investment Inc. which owns Peter Pan, along with Westward Seafoods, Alyeska Seafoods, Premier Pacific Seafoods and Trans-Ocean Products in the United States, announced in February it was looking to sell off the company, which traces its roots back to 1898 in Alaska.

Read more

Iberconsa was never likely to attract Asian investment, advisors say

/in

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.”

Read more

Pandemic forces salmon farmers to look at downstream M&A, advisors say

/in

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to drive more salmon farmers to look at buying into processing to secure access to their target markets, said financial advisors from Pareto Securities and Antarctica Advisors.

Speaking on Undercurrent News’ “What COVID-19 Means for Seafood M&A” webinar (watch in full below) on June 4, Henning Lund, a senior partner at the Norwegian advisory  rm Pareto, said upstream consolidation of the salmon sector would likely continue as before, with “new regulations and generation shifts more likely to impact the sector than the pandemic”.

Read more

M&A advisor: ‘Who’s going to be next Cooke?’

/in

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.

Read more

Argentina’s largest shrimp firm exploring sale, owner confrms

/in

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.

Read more

Mitsubishi, Legend rule out Clearwater bids with Antarctica brought in to drum up global interest

/in

Antarctica Advisors, one of the most prolific seafood corporate finance advisory firms, has been brought in to work with RBC Capital Markets on adding more international players to the sale process for Clearwater Seafoods, sources told Undercurrent News.

RBC is leading the Clearwater sale, which was announced on March 5, with Antarctica acting as co-advisor, Clearwater’s Christine Penney confirmed to Undercurrent. The revelation Florida, US-based Antarctica will also work on the sale of Clearwater — being valued by analysts at between CAD 880 million to CAD 1.2 billion ($641m to $847m) — comes as two big Asian players, Legend Holdings of China and Mitsibushi Corp. of Japan, ruled out bids to Undercurrent.

Read more

US trout farmer Riverence closes deal for larger rival Clear Springs

/in

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.

Read more

Riverence acquires Clear Springs, creating America’s largest trout producer

/in

The company, backed by a Hollywood TV mogul, now has its sights on re-inventing the US trout market.

Idaho-based Riverence Holdings on Saturday announced it acquired rival trout giant Clear Springs Foods, making the group the largest producer of land-based trout in the Americas.

With the Clear Springs deal, the company’s operations now include Riverence Brood in Washington State and Riverence Farms, and gives it an even stronger position as a vertically-integrated producer.

Read more