Aquaculture services and equipment provider AKVA group ASA has reached an agreement with fellow Norwegian company SinkabergHansen AS to sell it all of its shares in Atlantis Subsea Farming AS (ASF).
ASF was assigned a development license from Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries in 2018 for a new submersible cage concept for largescale salmon production. Sinkaberg-Hansen and Egersund Net were partners in the project.
The directorate has now decided that the development license can be converted to an ordinary operating license.
With AKVA owning 33.33 percent of the shares in ASF, it estimates that the profit from the sales of its shares will be NOK 35 million (USD 3.9 million, EUR 3.5 million). AKVA said as part of the transaction, it will become the owner of the technology that has been developed in ASF.
SinkabergHansen is fully integrated salmon company with facilities on the coast of Trøndelag and Helgeland. Its juvenile fish production takes place in Bindal and Nærøysund, while a new head office and factory, opened in June 2021, is located at Marøya.
Earlier in March, SinkabergHansen and Emilsen Fisk, and their joint operating company SBH Emilsen Akvamiljø AS, took delivery of new 4,000-cubic meter wellboat "Ronja Nærøysund,” from Sølvtrans. The two companies said the vessel will be important for maintaining and developing production capacity.
AKVA achieved fourth-quarter 2021 revenues of NOK 831 million (USD 92.8 million, EUR 84 million), representing a 10 percent year-on-year upturn, while its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of NOK 61 million (USD 6.8 million, EUR 6.2 million) were up NOK 7 million (USD 781,800, EUR 707,700 million) compared with Q4 2020.
Its net profit in the quarter decreased from NOK 7 million to NOK 6 million (USD 670,100, EUR 606,600) as a result of supply chain restrictions and cost inflations. At the same time, its order intake fell by more than a quarter to NOK 741 million (USD 82.8 million, EUR 74.9 million), with a backlog of NOK 3 billion (USD 335 million, EUR 303.3 million) at the end of December 2021.
Photo courtesy of Atlantis Subsea Farming
