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THE seafood industry is expecting a flurry of bidding activity following the collapse of takeover talks between the private equity company Triton Partners and the Icelandic Group.
Triton is reported to have offered 300 million euros for Icelandic, which has seafood production centres in Europe, Britain, the United States and Asia - 40 million euros less than the offer last month from Canada's High Liner Foods.
Icelandic conducted the negotiations under the umbrella of a company called The Enterprise Investment Fund, which actually manages the Reykjavik-based business and its managing director Finnbogi Jonsson said that the offer from Icelandic was not acceptable. In a somewhat complicated structure, peculiar to Nordic countries, the company is owned by a number of pension funds in Iceland, so ultimately what happens to it is important to many ordinary citizens.
Icelandic has now decided to sell its North American operation, Icelandic USA, based in Newport News, Virginia, and its facility in China, which will attract interest. Mr Jonsson said there were no plans to sell factories in Europe, which includes Coldwater Seafoods and Seachill of Grimsby or its sales systems and global brands.
But he added that Icelandic was still looking for a co-investor and it had been contacted by several parties - and this is almost certain to attract attention from other private equity groups and seafood producers. “Icelandic is a good company and naturally it has attracted a great deal of interest,” he said.
High Liner Foods has said it is still looking at Icelandic and particularly at its Newport News which brought it into the bidding in the first place.
High Liner's chief executive Kelly Nelson said the company was still interested, adding: "We’re waiting for someone to contact us and tell us we can be involved in some kind of process."
Robert Gibson, an analyst with Octagon Capital, said the collapse of the Triton deal was great news for High Liner as it is the logical and most interested party in the US business. "We expect that High Liner management already knows how much it would be willing to pay for these assets and will present to the Enterprise Fund shortly.”
Triton, which had been flagged as the favourite to buy the company, is now out of the reckoning and will look for seafood interests elsewhere, But the Icelandic Group saga is still far from over.
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