Chinese seafood giant Zoneco Group Co. (also known as Zhangzidao) has sold a 39 percent stake in its tuna processing joint venture in order to raise cash and buttress its books.
The buyer is its joint venture partner, the Tokyo, Japan-based Sojitz Corp. The JV, Xiang Yang Foodstuffs (also known as Dalian Global Food Corp.), has capacity to process 6,000 tons of tuna per year, most of it supplied by and processed for Japanese clients. It expanded into a second plant in 2017, which expanded its production into salmon.
The Dalian-based Zoneco, which has large aquaculture as well as processing and distribution operations, will get CNY 73.2 million (USD 10.6 million, EUR 9.2 million) in the sale. Zoneco will retain a 10 percent stake in Xiang Yang.
Zoneco has sought to reassure investors since it embarked on a “slimming-down” strategy earlier this year to cut staff levels and dispose of non-core assets. Shares of its stock continue to languish at one-third of their price before the company suffered a wipe-out of its scallop stocks due to what it described as “abrupt changes in water temperatures.”
Zoneco earlier this year reported a 52.4 percent drop in net profits for the first half of 2018, down to CNY 14.6 million (USD 2.1 million, EUR 1.8 million) on revenues of CNY 1.4 billion (USD 202.1 million, EUR 175.1 million).
