Icelandic Group has unloaded another piece of its seafood business, reaching an agreement to sell subsidiary Ný-Fiskur to Nesfiskur ehf, a fishing and processing company based in Garður, Iceland.
Terms of the deal were not announced, though the Icelandic Group said in its press release that the company’s trademark ‘Iceland Seafood’ is not included in the sale.
Ný-Fiskur, located in Sandgerði, Iceland, has around 70 employees and processes approximately 6,000 metric tons of seafood annually, primarily cod and haddock, with the bulk exported to Belgium and other European countries. It owns and operates a line boat and a production facility and controls 800 metric tons of quota for cod. The company’s 2016 revenues were ISK 3 billion (USD 26.3 million, EUR 23.5 million).
Outside of its base in Garður, Nesfiskur operates freezing and fresh fish production facilities in Sandgerði, and the company has said it will continue to operate Ný-Fiskur’s plant there.
The sale represents an about-face for Icelandic Group, which is owned by the Iceland Enterprise Investment Fund. Icelandic Group bought Ný-Fiskur in just two years ago, in 2014, but has been selling off assets following an announcement by the fund that it is seeking to divest itself from all of its seafood business by 2019.
“The past few years have been eventful in the operations of Ný-Fiskur, where the focus has been on restructuring various parts of the operations,” Iceland Enterprise Investment Fund Managing Director Herdís Dröfn Fjeldsted, who is also chairman of the board of Icelandic Group, said. “We believe that the future prospects of Ný-Fiskur are bright and are proud to hand over a sound company to the new owners. Furthermore, we are pleased with their plan to keep the operations in Sandgerði.”
