U.S. supplier and distributor Santa Monica Seafood on Wednesday acquired the seafood division assets of Prospect Enterprises, including American Fish & Seafood of Los Angeles. The transaction is expected to close on 4 July 2015.
The deal also includes Chesapeake Fish, LA Fish Company and Cactus Cove but does not include Kansas Marine, Prospect Enterprises’ cruise line support business, and Central Fish Company, a retail store operation in Fresno, Calif.
“American Fish has 68 years of operating history with a well-established reputation for supplying high quality seafood,” said Roger O’Brien, CEO of Santa Monica Seafood. “Ernie Doizaki, chairman of Prospect Enterprises, has been a pioneer and role model for seafood business success for decades in the California foodservice industry. Ernie trusts us with the legacy he has created and we are accepting the challenge and responsibility of continuing the legacy he has so well established.”
Santa Monica Seafood will control American Fish’s facilities and operations in Arizona and Sacramento, Calif.; Chesapeake Fish’s facility and operations in San Diego, Calif.; and LA Fish Company’s facility and operations in downtown Los Angeles. Santa Monica Seafood is hopeful of hiring all the employees at these locations. American Fish’s Los Angeles seafood division will be relocated to Santa Monica Seafood’s 120,000-square-foot facility in Rancho Dominguez, Calif.
In addition to the customer base and operating facilities, Santa Monica Seafood will also acquire the trade receivables and payables, inventory, intangible assets and most of the leased and owned trucks and equipment associated with Enterprise’s seafood operations.
“This transaction will bring together the two largest and the two most highly regarded seafood distributors in the southwestern U.S.,” added O’Brien. “I know we will learn from them and they will learn from us. Our goal is to end up with the ‘best-of-both-companies’ in terms of our quality, our responsible sourcing, our food safety, our service and our leadership support within the seafood industry.”
Santa Monica Seafood, the largest specialty wholesale distributor of fresh and frozen seafood in the southwestern United States, is a family-owned company in operation for 76 years. American Fish was established 68 years ago.
“While this is a huge transaction for both companies, our goal is to make this as seamless as possible to our joint customer base. In that regard, our intent is to maintain the operations and employees at Chesapeake Fish, LA Fish and American Fish in Arizona and Sacramento while we quickly integrate American Fish’s Los Angeles operations into our facility in Rancho Dominguez,” Anthony Cigliano, board chairman and president of Santa Monica Seafood. “We are very hopeful that many of the employees of American Fish in Los Angeles will want to join us in Rancho Dominguez where we have the space and the need for good workers.”
Santa Monica Seafood also operates three retail stores (Santa Monica, Costa Mesa and Santa Barbara, Calif.) and satellite facilities in Phoenix, Ariz.; Las Vegas, Nev.; and Atascadero, Morro Bay and San Diego, Calif.
