Marine Harvest formally changed its name to Mowi ASA at its general shareholders meeting on 4 December.
The name change, which was originally announced on 12 November, was met with approval from shareholders at the meeting. The Bergen, Norway-headquartered company, which is the largest salmon farming company in the world, will officially move to the new name on 1 January, 2019.
“We are doing this to make sure that the consumer and the shareholder over the long-term will be more happy,” CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog said in a November statement.
Marine Harvest also announced a continuing consultancy agreement between two longtime leaders of the company. Framar AS, which is controlled by Marine Harvest Chairman Ole-Eirik Lerøy and owns 0.31 percent of Marine Harvest shares, has entered into a 30-month marine sector consultancy agreement with Sterna Finance, a company controlled by John Fredriksen, who owns more than 78 million of Marine Harvest’s shares – the equivalent of 16 percent of the company – through his trust Geveran Trading Co.
The agreement allows Framar to purchase 750,000 shares in Marine Harvest between 11 May, 2019 and 11 May, 2021. With a strike price of NOK 229.90 (USD 27.14, EUR 23.83), the deal allows Lerøy to cash in his option for a gain if Marine Harvest outperforms a 5 percent annual interest component attached to the deal. Marine Harvest stock is currently trading at around NOK 204 (USD 24.08, EUR 21.15).
Lerøy had to pay a NOK 3.75 million (USD 442,530, EUR 388,750) premium to enter into the deal, but a similar options agreement netted him more than NOK 148 million (USD 17.5 million, EUR 15.3 million) when he cashed out in September.
In a separate announcement, Marine Harvest said it had completed the conversion of a bond issued to shareholders by the company in 2015, increasing the company’s capital by more than EUR 121 million (USD 137.6 million) through the issuance of more than 16 million new shares. The EUR 340 million (USD 387 million), five-year bond was set to settle in 2020, but following the conversion, the remaining EUR 300,000 (USD 341,225) of outstanding principal will be settled in cash.
Photo courtesy of New York Stock Exchange
