The large fish farmer is among the favorites to get the deal.
The Berg-Hansen family have been major owners in the Norwegian fish farming company Sinkaberg-Hansen after the sale of Bindalsmolt, with settlement in shares. Founder Bjørn Berg-Hansen and his family have divided the ownership into four branches, each with 11.1 percent of the shares in Rørvik-based Sinkaberg-Hansen. In total, the Berg-Hansen family thus owns 44.4 per cent of the integrated fish farming company Sinkaberg-Hansen.
According to Dagens Næringsliv, Sparebank1 Markets has been given a mandate to sell the family’s shares.
The founders Finn Sinkaberg (left) and Bjørn Berg-Hansen in the autumn of 2017. Photo: Sinkaberg-Hansen
Supplier
The sale process became known just before SalMar announced that it had bought 52.68 per cent from another Rørvik fish farmer, NTS.
Sinkaberg-Hansen has for a number of years been an important supplier of processed salmon products to Lerøy Seafood Group. The export of salmon also goes via Lerøy in Bergen. Precisely this alliance makes it particularly important for Lerøy not to see the shares sold to a competitor.
Public relations contact Krister Hoaas does not want to elaborate on whether Lerøy may be interested in bidding for the Berg-Hansen family’s shares in Sinkaberg-Hansen.
“No comment,” Hoaas writes in an email to SalmonBusiness.
Sinkaberg-Hansen opened their brand new state of the art “salmon factory” in Rørvik a year and a half ago.
Sinkaberg-Hansen’s slaughterhouse and processing plant in Rørvik. Photo: Sinkaberg-Hansen
Record high
The sales plans come at a time of record high salmon prices. In the last two weeks, the farmgate spot price has fluctuated between EUR 12 and 13 kroner per kilo. This naturally helps to sweeten the pricing of Sinkaberg-Hansen.
According to the Pareto Securities, 100 percent of the company is valued at between NOK 7-9 billion (EUR 700-900 million). This means that the Berg-Hansen family’s values are somewhere between NOK 3.1-4 billion (EUR 310-400 million).
Sinkaberg-Hansen has a production capacity of 35,000 tonnes of salmon annually.
