Faroe Islands-based pelagic fishing company Christian I Grotinum has bought Larsen Danish Seafood A/S out of administration for an undisclosed sum.
Jan Petersen, financial director at Christian I Grotinum told SeafoodSource.com that contracts with the insolvency administrator were signed on 5 February.
“We have bought the factories in Harrislee and Bremerhaven (Germany) as well as the brand,” said Petersen.
“For some time we have been looking for opportunities to implement our vertical integration strategy. When we learned that Larsen had entered the insolvency process we decided to take a look at it and see if it would work for us.”
Larsen went bankrupt in 2014 with debts for the last three years totaling DKK 59 million (EUR 7.9 million; USD 8.9 million) but continued production at its facilities in Germany. The company specializes in the manufacture of canned seafood products, particularly Atlantic mackerel, herring, kippers, trout and salmon, which are sold into retail. It switched its production from Loegstoer, Denmark, to Germany four years ago.
Christian I Grotinum was founded in the 1970s and operates a purse seiner/pelagic trawler also called Christian I Grotinum as well as the factory trawler Nordborg. It has quotas for blue whiting, herring and mackerel.
