Marine Harvest’s buy-up of integrated salmon-farmer, Northern Harvest, can proceed.
“This means that we can proceed with closing the transaction,” the company said in a stock exchange announcement this morning. The acquisition price on a cash and debt free basis is CAD 315 million.
It was Christmas Eve last year it was confirmed that Marine Harvest had entered into an agreement to purchase Northern Harvest, a leading East Coast Canadian salmon farmer.
A few days after it was confirmed that the buy-up was going to be reviewed by the Canadian Competition Bureau, a process that was expected to take as long as a year.
However, six months later the Canadian Competition Bureau approves the transaction.
Northern Harvest is expected to harvest 19 thousand tonnes (GWE) of salmon in 2018, and has currently 45 farming licenses in Newfoundland and New Brunswick. The company has an additional 13 farming licenses in application mode.
With 60,000 t of salmon production between them, Northern Harvest and Marine Harvest make just under a third of current Canadian annual production.
