Marine Harvest

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"Pan Fish" redirects here. For the types of game fish, see panfish.
Marine Harvest ASA
Type Public (OSE: MHG)
Founded 2006 (current structure)
Headquarters Oslo, Norway
Key people Åse Aulie Michelet (CEO), Svein Aaser (Chairman of the board)
Industry Seafood
Products Farmed salmon and trout,
processing and distribution of seafood
Revenue NOK 14.029 billion (2007)[1]
Operating income ▲ NOK 675.5 million (2007)[1]
Profit ▲ NOK 5.1 million (2007)[1]
Employees 8,500 (2007)[1]
Website www.marineharvest.com

Marine Harvest ASA (OSE: MHG), Pan Fish prior to February 6, 2007[2] is a Norwegian seafood company with operations in a number of countries around the world. The company's primary interest is the production, processing and sale of farmed salmon, the operations of which are focused on Norway, Scotland, Canada and Chile. The group has a share of between 25 and 30% of the global salmon and trout market,[3][4] making it the world's largest company in the sector.[3][5] Marine Harvest also owns a 'value added processing' unit, which prepares and distributes a range of seafood products, and a number of smaller divisions.

The company assumed its current form as a result of massive expansion in 2006, when Pan Fish ASA conducted an effective three-way merger with Marine Harvest N.V. and Fjord Seafood.[6] The group is headquartered in Oslo and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange where it is a constituent of the benchmark OBX Index.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Constituent companies

[edit] Marine Harvest

Marine Harvest operation on Loch Ailort, Scotland, one of the oldest Atlantic salmon farms.
Marine Harvest operation on Loch Ailort, Scotland, one of the oldest Atlantic salmon farms.

The first company to use the name Marine Harvest was founded in Lochailort, Scotland by Unilever in 1965[7] at the outset of the Atlantic salmon farming industry.[8][9][10] Unilever had been developing farming methods at a research facility there.[11] The company began operations in Chile in 1975.[7] In 1992, Unilever sold the business to American firm Marifarms,[12] and two years later ownership of the company passed to Booker plc when it was merged with Booker's aquaculture subsidiary, McConnell Salmon.[13] After deciding to divest Marine Harvest McConnell so as to concentrate on its core cash and carry business in 1998, Booker eventually succeeded in finding a buyer in July 1999. The Dutch-based nutrition firm Nutreco acquired the unit for £32.7 million, adding it to its fish food and salmon farming unit.[13][14] Nutreco's initial attempt to further expand into the fish farming sector by acquiring the seafood arm of Norsk Hydro was blocked on the recommendation of the United Kingdom Competition Commission in late 2000,[15] but the deal was approved in March 2001 after Nutreco agreed not to acquire Hydro Seafood's Scottish assets.[16][17]

Nutreco retained the name Marine Harvest for the unit's fish farming operations, and established interests in the emerging farmed cod, halibut, yellowtail and barramundi markets.[18] In May 2005, Nutreco merged its fish-farming operations with the salmon, trout, halibut, tilapia, cod, sturgeon and caviar businesses of Stolt-Nielsen,[19] creating a new stand-alone company, again named Marine Harvest. Nutreco held a 75% stake in the joint venture, with Stolt taking the remainder.[20]

[edit] Pan Fish

Pan Fish Holding AS was founded in 1992 with a strategy to acquire many fish farms domestically and abroad.[7] By 1997 the firm had made numerous acquisitions and opted to list on the Oslo Stock Exchange as Pan Fish ASA.[7] However, the company had borrowed heavily to finance its rapid growth - by the end of 2001, debts had reached over 4.7 billion NOK.[21] When the market price of salmon collapsed in 2001[22] Pan Fish encountered extreme financial difficulties, posting a heavy loss in 2002[23] and having to sell off assets in order to repay creditors.[24] A major refinancing operation implemented in late 2002[25] coincided with the dismissal of the entire board of directors, including founder and CEO Arne Nore.[26] The company slowly recovered over the following years, returning to profitability in 2005.[27]

[edit] Fjord Seafood

Fjord Seafood has its origins in Torgnes Invest, a company founded in June 1996 which initially operated a single fish farm in the Norwegian town of Brønnøysund.[28] Expansion over the following four years was aggressive - by September 2000, when Fjord Seafood (as it was now called) listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, the company's portfolio comprised 60 ongrowing concessions, of which 50 were wholly-owned, as well as a number of smolt and broodstock farms, slaughterhouses and processing factories.[29] Fjord continued to conduct mergers and acquisitions - the purchase of Belgian fish-processing company Pieters N.V. in November 2000[30] was swiftly followed by the addition of ContiSea, the seafood joint-venture of ContiGroup and Seaboard Corporation.[31]

As with Pan Fish, poor market conditions saw Fjord's share price worsen dramatically in 2001, and with it the ability to pay off its debts. The company's future was only secured thanks to a 700 million NOK bail out from major shareholders that September.[32] Attempts to grow the company through M&A were also frustrated - a planned merger[33] with the aquaculture businesses of Domstein (then the biggest shareholder of Fjord[34]) and state-controlled Cermaq was aborted in June 2002 after opposition from parties including ContiGroup and Seaboard, who controlled over 20% of shares between them.[35] Nevertheless, Fjord stabilised its financial position through restructuring and cost-cutting measures.[36]

[edit] Merger

Moves toward consolidation in the aquaculture sector were sparked by the activity of shipping magnate John Fredriksen, Norway's richest man before abandoning his citizenship of the country in 2006.[37] Fredriksen's first major move into the industry came in the second quarter of 2005, when Domstein's 24% stake in Fjord Seafood was sold to his investment vehicle Geveran Trading.[38] Around the same time, Pan Fish announced that two companies indirectly controlled by Fredriksen had acquired a combined 48% of the company's outstanding shares.[39] In October of that year, with salmon prices high,[40] Fjord submitted an offer for a majority stake in Cermaq to the Norwegian Government, which was preparing it for a public listing. However, as with the first merger attempt in 2002, Fjord failed in its bid - this time the offer was rejected by the Government.[41]

Fredriksen's efforts to effect change finally bore fruit in March 2006 as Geveran Trading succeeded in purchasing Marine Harvest from its joint owners for € 881 million, before immediately turning ownership over to Pan Fish.[42][43] Geveran also sold its stake in Fjord Seafood to Pan Fish at the same time.[44] With its remaining shares purchased by Pan Fish, Fjord Seafood de-listed from the Oslo Stock Exchange on 2006-07-06.[45] With regulatory hurdles in the U.K. and France cleared,[46][47] the Marine Harvest group was brought under the control of Pan Fish by the end of 2006. Geveran Trading held a 28% stake in Pan Fish as of the end of 2006.[3]

[edit] Change in identity

With the creation of a much enlarged company complete, the Pan Fish management announced a complete change in its identity in December 2006. The firm's new brand was chosen to reflect each of its three main constituents: "Marine Harvest" was again revived as the new name for the company, and the Fjord Seafood slogan "excellence in seafood" and a reworked version of the Pan Fish motif were also included in the new logo.[48] Atle Eide, CEO of Pan Fish from 2003, continued in his position, but resigned in September 2007 for personal reasons.[49] Eide was replaced on an interim basis by Leif Frode Onarheim, before the CEO position was filled permanently by former GE Healthcare executive Åse Aulie Michelet in March 2008.[50]

[edit] Operations

Entrance to a Marine Harvest farm on Loch Arkaig, Lochaber, Scotland.
Entrance to a Marine Harvest farm on Loch Arkaig, Lochaber, Scotland.

[edit] Norway

In Norway Marine Harvest owns and operates 60 licences for fish farming in Møre og Romsdal and Sogn og Fjordane. The company also owns Fjord Seafood and 44% of Aalesundfisk. The Norwegian Head Office is located in Bergen and the company has 260 employees in Norway.

[edit] Scotland

In Scotland Marine Harvest owns and operates 27 licences for fish farming on the West Coast of the Mainland. Offices are located in Paisley and the company has 169 employees in Scotland.

[edit] Canada

In Canada Marine Harvest owns and operates 70 licences for fish farming in British Columbia. Offices are located in Campbell River and the company has 525 employees in Canada.

[edit] Faroe Islands

In the Faroe Islands Marine Harvest owns and operates 11 licences. Its offices are in Hellurnar and the company has 20 employees in the Faroe Islands.

[edit] France

In France Marine Harvest operates a smoked salmon factory in Brittany in addition to owning the seafood company Kritsen. Offices are located in Carhaix Plouguer Cedex and the company has 166 employees.

[edit] Japan

Marine Harvest has a sales office in Tokyo, Japan with 7 employees.

[edit] Criticism

Marine Harvest has been criticised for destroying a large part of the weir Murray's Cauld on the River Ettrick in Selkirk through what has been claimed to be inaction. Critics fear that without intervention, the entire local landmark could be destroyed resulting in damage of both the river and its surrounding area. [1]

Marine Harvest has been involved in one of the major ecological disasters in the south of Chile, where millions of fish have died by an infectious anemia produced by the ISA virus [2][3]. The rapid propagation of the virus has motivated the enterprise to sell its facilities, firing more than thousand employees [4], with the aim of translating its installations farther south to the Aisen region. Parasitic infections, viral infections, fungal infections are all disseminated when the fish are stressed and the centers are too close together, and Arne Hjeltnes, spokesman for Marine Harvest, recognized that his company was using too many antibiotics in Chile and that fish pens where too close, contributing to the dissemination of the ISA virus [5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Annual Report 2007. Marine Harvest. Retrieved on 2008-05-27.
  2. ^ MHG - NEW NAME AND TICKER FROM TODAY. Stocklink (2007-02-06). Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  3. ^ a b c Annual Report 2006. Marine Harvest. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  4. ^ Stepek, John. "What do oil, salmon and plastic bags have in common?", Money Week. Retrieved on 2007-08-15. 
  5. ^ Chefs and food critics treated to Norwegian halibut. Norway - the official site in the UK. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  6. ^ Pan Fish ASA (2006-05-31). "Pan Fish ASA: First quarter 2006 - Foundation for the world's leading aquaculture company is laid". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  7. ^ a b c d Pan Fish ASA and Marine Harvest NV Merger Inquiry: Provisional Findings. Competition Commission. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  8. ^ Salmon Farming. Scottish Agricultural College. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  9. ^ Fact Sheets: Farmed Salmon. Canadian Government Agri-Food Trade Service. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  10. ^ Timeline of Salmon Aquaculture. SeaWeb. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  11. ^ Rae, G.H. (June 2002). "Sea louse control in Scotland, past and present". Pest Management Science 58 (6): 515–520. doi:10.1002/ps.491. 
  12. ^ Proposed merger between Nutreco Holding NV and Hydro Seafood GSP Limited: Part II: Background and evidence. Competition Commission. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  13. ^ a b Nutreco (1999-07-15). "Nutreco acquires Marine Harvest McConnell". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  14. ^ "Business: The Company File: Dutch firm nets salmon producer", BBC News, 1999-07-15. Retrieved on 2007-08-16. 
  15. ^ "Salmon firm takeover blocked", BBC News, 2000-12-23. Retrieved on 2007-08-16. 
  16. ^ Proposed merger between Nutreco Holding NV and Hydro Seafood GSP Limited, a subsidiary of Norsk Hydro ASA. UK Office of Fair Trading (2001-03-28). Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  17. ^ UNDERTAKINGS GIVEN TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY PURSUANT TO SECTION 88(2) OF THE FAIR TRADING ACT 1973 BY NUTRECO HOLDING NV. UK Office of Fair Trading. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
  18. ^ Annual Report 2002. Nutreco. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  19. ^ Group History. Stolt Sea Farm. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  20. ^ Bolger, Andrew. "ELECTION 2005: 120 lose jobs in fish farms merger", Financial Times, 2005-05-05. Retrieved on 2007-08-16. 
  21. ^ Annual Report 2001. Pan Fish. Retrieved on 2007-08-17.
  22. ^ Hard times for the salmon industry - Excess production, dumping prices – and no end in sight. Eurofish magazine (May/June 2002). Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
  23. ^ Berglund, Nina. "Seafood producer's loss stuns already-battered market", Aftenposten, 2003-02-26. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  24. ^ Annual Report 2002. Pan Fish. Retrieved on 2007-08-17.
  25. ^ "Pan fish refinances", Aftenposten, 2002-12-13. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  26. ^ "Banks' refinancing proposal accepted without a hitch", Intrafish, January 2003. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  27. ^ Pan Fish (2006-02-14). "Pan Fish ASA - Strong closing of the year 2005, and the first year of profit since 2001". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-08-17.
  28. ^ Economic Impact of Salmon Farming Mergers: Final Report. Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Retrieved on 2007-08-19.
  29. ^ New on the OSE: Fjord Seafood ASA. Oslo Børs. Retrieved on 2007-08-19.
  30. ^ "Industriële Noorse visgroep neemt Pieters Groep over", De Tijd, 2000-11-18. Retrieved on 2007-08-19. (Dutch) 
  31. ^ Annual Report 2001. Seaboard Corporation. Retrieved on 2007-08-19.
  32. ^ Bergesen, Lasse. "Fulltegnet Fjord-emisjon", Dagens Næringsliv, 2001-09-28. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. (Norwegian) 
  33. ^ History in brief. Cermaq. Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
  34. ^ 2001 Preliminary Results. Fjord Seafood. Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
  35. ^ Morstøl, Kjersti. "Fjord-aksjonærer avlyste fusjon", Dagens Næringsliv, 2002-06-10. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. (Norwegian) 
  36. ^ Annual Report 2002. Fjord Seafood. Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
  37. ^ De Lange, Grete; Tisdall, Jonathan. "Norway's richest man no longer", Aftenposten, 2006-05-11. Retrieved on 2007-08-23. 
  38. ^ Q2 Report 2005. Fjord Seafood. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  39. ^ Pan Fish (2005-06-07). "Filing of ownership in Pan Fish". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  40. ^ Berglund, Nina. "Salmon prices high as mergers loom", Aftenposten, 2005-06-28. Retrieved on 2007-08-23. 
  41. ^ "State rejects Cermaq bid", Reuters, 2005-10-06. Retrieved on 2007-08-23. 
  42. ^ "Nutreco, Stolt-Nielsen to sell Marine Harvest to Geveran Trading", AFX News, 2006-03-06. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. 
  43. ^ Company Timeline. Stolt-Nielsen. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  44. ^ "Pan Fish buys Geveran Trading's 25.7 pct stake in Fjord Seafood for 1.3 bln nkr", AFX News, 2006-03-06. Retrieved on 2007-08-24. 
  45. ^ LAST DAY OF LISTING TODAY. Oslo Børs (2006-07-06). Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
  46. ^ Pan Fish (2006-12-13). "Pan Fish ASA - The French Ministry of the Economy has authorised (final) 2006 the acquisition by Pan Fish of Marine Harvest". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
  47. ^ Pan Fish ASA and Marine Harvest NV Merger Inquiry: Final Report. Competition Commission. Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
  48. ^ Pan Fish (2006-12-22). "Name and identity for new company is decided". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
  49. ^ Marine Harvest (2007-08-31). "Atle Eide steps down as CEO in Marine Harvest ASA". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-10-20.
  50. ^ Acher, John. "Marine Harvest appoints Aulie Michelet new CEO", Reuters, 2008-01-02. Retrieved on 2008-03-07. 

[edit] External links

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OBX companies of Norway