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THREE leading executives with the Icelandic Group, which was at the centre of an abortive takover bid last week, have dramatically tendered their resignation, indicating serious tensions at the top of one of the world's largest seafood producers.
The reason given is that their "ideas for the company's direction no longer coincides with the vision of the board of directors". Plans to break up the group are believed to be at the heart of the row.
The three who have gone are the chief executive, Finnbogi Baldvinsson, the deputy chief executive, Ingvar Eyfjord and the chief financial officer, Finnbogi Gylfason. Both Mr Baldvinsson and Mr Eyfjord come from traditional trawler fishing families. They said that "in good conscience" they could no longer follow a strategy that they believe to be incorrect.
Brynjólfur Bjarnason, the Chairman of Board of Icelandic Group will temporarily take over the Chief Executive Officer role and lead a new Executive Management Board together with Ævar Agnarsson, Chief Executive Officer of Icelandic USA, and Magni Geirsson, Managing Director of Icelandic UK. Icelandic UK has two large production centres in Grimsby employing over 1,200 people.
Brynjólfur Bjarnason, Chairman of Icelandic Group said in a statement: “The turbulence around Icelandic Group in recent years has been a challenging time for the Company, its management and employees. Our main objective now is to obtain stability in the operations of Icelandic Group.
"The Board of Directors will now thoroughly consider the options available in order to maximise the return of the proposed asset sale. With its international network of independent production and marketing companies, Icelandic Group is well positioned to take advantage of exciting opportunities ahead.”
Last week Icelandic rejected a 300 million euro offer from the European private equity firm Triton Partners. It then put its manufacturing operations in the United States and in China up for open sale. The Triton failure is expected to lead to further offers for Icelandic from other private equity concerns and from existing seafood producers like High Liner Foods of Canada which had a 340 million euro offer snubbed last month.
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