Premium Brands Holdings Corporation announced during its fourth-quarter financial results presentation that the company has completed the acquisition of Starboard Seafood.
Premium Brands announced in August that the company would be resuming its acquisition strategy after a COVID-19 related pause, and since that time has acquired a number of seafood companies. Among those is a significant stake in Clearwater Seafoods, which according to Premium Brands’ latest financial statement was finalized in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Overall, the company made just over CAD 550 million (USD 440 million, EUR 368 million) in acquisitions in the quarter and subsequent to it. In Q4, Premium Brands completed the acquisitions of Allseas Fisheries, then subsequent to the quarter, the company completed the acquisition Starboard Seafood.
Starboard Seafood is a Canadian company with locations in both Quebec and Ontario, and touts over 50,000 square feet of facilities in Toronto and Montreal. The purchase price has not been disclosed by Premium Brands.
For the quarter, the company posted adjusted earnings before income, taxes, debt, and amortization (EBITDA) of CAD 87.7 million (USD 70.2 million, EUR 58.8 million), representing a 16.8 percent – or CAD 12.6 million (USD 10.1 million, EUR 8.4 million) – increase over the same period in 2019. For the year, the company posted an adjusted EBITDA of CAD 312.6 million (USD 250.4 million, EUR 209.6 million), a slight increase of 1.6 percent.
Premium Brands President and CEO George Paleologou said that 2020 was the “most difficult year in our history,” due to pandemic challenges, but the company’s business model allowed it to prevail.
“Pandemic related challenges impacted almost every facet of our business but thanks to our great people and unique culture, we managed to deliver our 17th consecutive year of record sales and adjusted EBITDA,” he said in a release. “Our decentralized business model and focus on entrepreneurialism enabled us to pivot rapidly and meet the challenges of the pandemic head on.”
The company maintains an overall goal of reaching CAD 6 billion (USD 4.8 billion, EUR 4 billion) in revenue, and CAD 600 million (USD 480 million, EUR 402 million) in adjusted EBITDA by 2023. According to Paleologou despite the pandemic-related setbacks, the company should still be able to reach those goals.
“Despite the pandemic, we exited 2020 a stronger, larger and more resilient company and are very well positioned to generate even higher growth rates once the Canadian and U.S. economies are fully reopened and the pandemic is behind us,” he said.
Due to the uncertainty surrounding potential impacts of the pandemic over the next year, the company did not post any earnings predictions for 2021.
Photo courtesy of Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia
