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THE Icelandic Group, one of the world's largest seafood producers, has just announced a 25 per cent increase in pre-tax profits for the year 2010.
The Reykjavik based company has an international network of production and marketing companies in Europe, North America and Asia and said it is continuing to deliver stable turnover year on year. Its UK operations, based in Grimsby, include Coldwater Seafoods a major supplier of prepared fish dishes to Marks & Spencer and others and along with Seachill which supplies fresh fish to a number of supermarket groups, including Tesco. They are both believed to have performed well last year.
Turnover for 2010 was described as stable totalling almost a billion euros (999.6 million euros to be precise). Profit before tax amounted to 15.6 million euros compared to 12.4 million euros in 2009. The net profit was 6.1 million euros, on a par with the previous year.
Official comment was brief this time with a short statement saying: "Icelandic Group is well equipped to continue to consolidate and integrate its operations for further value creation. "
The group may have had a successful trading year, but events elsewhere have tended to grab the headlines in recent months. A possible sale to the European private equity group Triton Partners collapsed in early March, which was followed by the resignation of three members of the executive management board. Icelandic has since appointed Bank of America Merrill Lynch as exclusive advisors to handle any possible future sale.
The group has already signalled that it may sell Icelandic USA and its Asian operations, with High Liner Foods of Canada expected to bid for the North American business.
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