Canadian seafood enterprise Cooke is closing in on its pending acquisition of Uruguay’s largest seafood company, Fripur, with officials bidding on behalf of the Cooke family stationed in the South American country this week in anticipation of a final sale.
If the acquisition goes through, the Cooke operation could add as much as 16,000 metric tons of hake and 1,600 metric tons of red crab to its extensive portfolio. A company statement deployed on 17 November expects final proceedings to transpire in the coming days after the proper court approval process is completed.
Cooke-owned Perindes S.A is the company that the purchase is being completed through, said Cooke officials. Reparations for Uruguayan fishing vessels are already underway, and Cooke expects fishing operations to resume in early 2017, the company said in its statement.
The purchase of Fripur’s Argentinian subsidiary Grinfin – which employs 70 people and operates three large hake fishery vessels and an office out of Buenos Aires – was completed by Cooke several weeks ago, and fishing has already started as a result of the sale. Cooke made the Grinfin purchase via Wanchese Argentina S.r.l., an entity owned by Cooke Seafood USA, Inc. The acquisition is expected to bring a further 8,000 metric tons of hake per year to the Cooke sales pipeline.
Uruguayan newspaper La Diaria reported that Cooke was in the process of completing its payment for the Fripur acquisition on Thursday, even as former Fripur workers congregated to call for the cancellation of an insolvency process with respect to Cooke’s purchase. According to the collective, known as Eco-Fripur, Cooke’s initial purchase of Fripur’s Argentinian assets (Grinfin) for USD 3.8 million (EUR 3.5 million) was not in compliance with proper bankruptcy proceedings (Cooke should have paid USD 15 million [EUR 13.9 million] for the company’s total assets, said the group), and thus, should be voided.
