Icelanders invest in Matorku, which produces Artic char and steelhead salmon.
In a press release, private equity fund Freyja, which is operated by the private equity fund manager Kvika Asset Management, writes that it has acquired a 15 per-cent stake in Matorku. Both are based in Iceland.
Following the transaction, Freyja, which oversees a EUR 52 million portfolio, will be the company’s third-largest shareholder. Amongst Matorka’s other investors is the Dutch investment fund Aqua-Spark.
Last year, Matorku farmed around 1,000 tonnes of Artic char and steelhead salmon, though it aiming for 3,000 tonnes production capacity.
Freyja wrote that Matorka’s sales and marketing efforts have been successful in recent times, and its revenues have 18-fold in the past five years or since production. It has also delivered a positive EBITDA margin since 2019.
The company currently has an operating license that allows the company to multiply its production to its existing establishment as well as existing investment in tanks and other manufacturing equipment.
Matorka chairman Bjarni K. Þorvararson said that the company aims to fully utilise its production license within five years which would roughly increase existing production tenfold.
“Behind the company is the decades of experience of the company’s management and its entrepreneurs in the development of land-based, and it is particularly pleasing to see that knowledge, as well as strong sales practice, attract interest from strong domestic professional investors,” said Þorvararson.
Freyja managing director Margir Robertet said that she sees “significant opportunities” in the investment in Matorka, adding that “aquaculture has more than quadrupled in the last 10 years in Iceland alongside the increasing public consumption of fish”.
