Akureyri, Iceland-headquartered Samherji has announced that long-time CEO Thorsteinn Mar Baldvinsson, who founded the company in 1983, will step down in June.
Baldvinsson announced his departure in a letter to employees, which the company shared as a 23 May press release.
“The seafood industry has been my life's work, and it has been a true privilege to build this company alongside you over the past four decades,"Baldvinsson said.
Baldvin Thorsteinsson, Baldvinsson’s son and the company’s chair, will take the CEO position when his father vacates the role. Thorsteinsson is also one of Samherji's largest shareholders.
In his letter, Baldvinsson did not mention one of the most well-known events in the company’s recent history: the Namibian Fishrot scandal. The scandal, which first came to public attention in 2019, involved government officials selling Samherji Namibian fishing quotas below market values in exchange for bribes.
In 2024, evidence came to light that Baldvinsson had had contact with Jóhannes Stefánsson, the company’s former director of operations in Namibia, who served as the scandal’s whistleblower. Stefánsson released information documenting the scandal through Wikileaks in 2019. At that time, Baldvinsson said Stefánsson had acted alone and that the two men had not been in contact when the events of Fishrot were unfolding.
In 2024, however, Icelandic publication Heimildin unearthed police records of thousands of text messages between the two men, though they did not access the content of the messages. When that article came out, Baldvinsson again denied the allegations.
Earlier that year, the company had filed suit against an Icelandic art student who used its branding to issue a satirical apology for the company’s role in the scandal. The High Court of Justice in the U.K. ruled that the artist, Odee Friðriksson, was required to remove the website in November 2024.
Baldvinsson made only fleeting mention of the firm’s work outside of Iceland in his letter to the company, saying that in 1994 the company had begun “investing in foreign fisheries companies and was, for many years, heavily involved in catching and processing abroad.” The firm’s foreign operations were restructured in 2018 and had been sold in 2022, now operating as Alda Seafood of the Netherlands.
Baldvinsson will continue to serve on the company’s board.
