Cape Town, South Africa-based seafood company Sea Harvest Group has announced its intention to acquire 100 percent of businesses engaged in the catching, processing, and sale of pelagic fish under the umbrella of the Terrasan Group – a South African investment firm.
Sea Harvest said in a statement it will also acquire nearly two-thirds of Terrasan’s subsidiaries engaged in the farming, processing, and sale of abalone in South Africa.
In one of the largest merger and acquisition deals of recent note in South Africa’s seafood sector, Sea Harvest Group says it will pay Terrasan an estimated ZAR 965 million (USD 50.4 million, EUR 46.2 million) for the entire transaction that will be settled through both cash and shares.
Terrasan, on the other hand, will acquire shares in Sea Harvest Group worth ZAR 600 million (USD 31.3 million, EUR 28.8 million) as part of the initial transaction value.
As part of the deal, Sea Harvest will acquire Terrasan’s vertically integrated pelagic fish business – West Point Fishing – which is based in St. Helena Bay on the west coast of South Africa.
Currently, West Point Fishing has more than 600 employees working on a fishing fleet that catches sardines and anchovies and produces fish oil and fishmeal for both export and domestic use. The business also sells canned fish under the 118-year-old “Saldanha” brand, which largely targets the South African market.
West Point Fishing, of which Saldanha Protein is a 60 percent majority owner, told SeafoodSource in October 2023 that it was undergoing a major maintenance program to enhance the performance of its fishmeal and fish canning operations in readiness for 2024.
The maintenance work has included replacing one of the fishmeal plant’s cooking lines, as well as revamping the plant’s reverse osmosis process for purifying industrial water used at the plant to reduce overall energy consumption. The company expected to be done with the process in early 2024.
Elsewhere in the deal ...
Photo courtesy of Sea Harvest Group
