Clean Seas Seafood Limited requested an immediate halt to the trading of the company’s ordinary shares quoted on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on 3 May, 2021, in anticipation of announcing a listing on Oslo’s Euronext Growth market.
Headquartered at its processing facility in Royal Park in Adelaide, South Australia, Clean Seas is the largest producer of farmed yellowtail kingfish outside of Japan. Its hatchery is at Arno Bay and its fish farms are at Port Lincoln, both on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia.
In a statement and in accordance with Australian financial regulations, the Australian yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi) producer’s board has advised that “the trading halt is requested pending an anticipated announcement by [the] company regarding a proposed capital raising and secondary listing on Euronext Growth Oslo.”
“The company requests that the trading halt remains in place until the earlier of commencement of normal trading on Wednesday, 5 May, 2021, or when the announcement referred to above is released to the market,” the company said.
In February this year, and despite ongoing disruption in the foodservice channel, Clean Seas posted sales of 1,444 metric tons (MT) for the first half of the financial year (FY) 2021, compared with 1,018 MT in the second half of FY2020 and 1,406 MT in H1 FY2020. Its underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) loss of AUD 5.1 million (USD 3.9 million, EUR 3.3 million) for the six-month period was AUD 3.7 million (USD 2.9 million, EUR 2.4 million) lower than for H1 FY2020, with the company explaining that profitability had been negatively impacted by an increase in production costs and a reduction in revenue per kilogram produced due to increased price support provided to customers to open new markets and accelerated channel diversification.
North America is the largest kingfish market outside of Japan, where a key focus for Clean Seas has been establishing market entry through its strategic partnership with the Hofseth Group.
The company appointed its acting chief financial officer, Robert Gratton, as its CEO in December 2020 after former CEO David Head retired in September.
Photo courtesy of Clean Seas
