The company, which owns Farne Salmon and Trout in Scotland and Lyons Seafood in England, says it has no further interest in the fish trading business.

The buyer is CP Holding AS, a company controlled by John Idar Synnes, who is also managing director of Christiansen Partner. Icelandic owned Alfesca says that following the sale it intends to sharpen its focus on the production and marketing of value added products.

The sale is not thought to have any significant impact on Alfesca's trading although it will have an overall benefit.

The total sales of Christiansen Partner amounted to around 25 million euros for the financial year 2006/7. The book value of the gross assets of the company being sold was 2.5 million euros at the end of 2007.

Only last week, Alfesca announced that it had decided not to buy Oscar Meyer, the UK ready meals company because of the soaring costs of food raw material prices. It said that discussions relating to its proposed acquisition of the private label ready meals supplier had been terminated.

It now looks as if the group will concentrate on what it has been doing best - selling specialist seafood in the UK and Europe. Alfesca is a leading European producer of smoked salmon and other fish, prawns and shellfish, blinis and foie gras. Employing over 3,500 people, including several hundred in Scotland, it has a substantial presence in the UK own label market.

Alfesca said it would continue with its strategy to further develop and grow its business. With the benefit of a strong balance sheet and support of its banking consortium and key shareholders, Alfesca said it was evaluating new opportunities, taking into account current market conditions, and further announcements would be made in due course. Just a few weeks ago Alfesca, alone among most Icelandic seafood operations, announced a successful first half trading year buoyed up by strong Christmas sales of items like salmon and shellfish. Turnover or sales for the half year shot up by 14.2 per cent to 396.1 million euros (around £304 million).

However, most people are not expecting such a successful repeat performance this year. Although salmon prices have remained fairly stable, other raw material costs have shot up and are likely to impact on profits.

Chief executive Xavier Govare warned a few months ago that the trading environment and market conditions for the rest of the 2008 calendar year would be very difficult.

"Whilst we progress with our plans to further strengthen Alfesca and increase shareholder value, our results demonstrate that Alfesca is well positioned and able to manage the adverse conditions," he added.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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