New Zealand King Salmon CEO Grant Rosewarne abruptly resigned effective immediately on 1 November, a release from the company posted to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) states.
New Zealand King Salmon was established in 1996 with the privatization and merger of what were at the time New Zealand’s two largest salmon companies. Rosewarne has served as the company’s CEO since 2009.
“Grant has made a significant contribution to New Zealand King Salmon, including leading the company through its IPO and the creation of the Ora King brand. He has also guided the company through a number of recent challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic,” New Zealand King Salmon Chair John Ryder said in a release.
Some of those recent challenges include drops in revenue due to lower sales, and global warming impacting the company’s ability to farm salmon. The company has announced efforts to expand its aquaculture operations into the open ocean as it was forced to try and move some of its salmon farms due to warming waters.
“Climate change is very real and we have felt its impact in the Marlborough Sounds over the past couple of summers,” then-NZKS Chief Operating Officer Alan Cook said in 2019. Cook resigned from the position in 2020.
Recent losses also led the company to offer existing shareholders a deal earlier this year on new company shares as a bid to pay off debt. The company offered new shares at NZD 0.15 (then USD 0.10, EUR 0.09) per share, significantly below what it was trading at the time. The company’s share price dropped soon after, dropping on the New Zealand Stock Exchange from NZD 0.86 (then USD 0.58, EUR 0.53) on 12 April, 2022, to NZD 0.69 (then USD 0.46, EUR 0.43) on Thursday, 14 April. By May, that price had dropped all the way to NZD 0.20 (USD 0.11, EUR 0.11) and the price currently sits at NZD 0.225 (USD 0.13, EUR 0.13).
Despite the downturn for the company, Ryder said that Rosewarne was leaving New Zealand King Salmon in a good place for future operations as it continues to work toward more farming space.
“Grant has led a significant effort to obtain new waterspace to enable future growth and we are expecting to hear an outcome from our Blue Endeavour application at the end of November,” Ryder said.
Photo courtesy of Grant Rosewarne/Linkedin
