Nireus buys into Norway’s Marine Farms
OSLO/ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek fish farmer Nireus bought a 17.9 percent stake in Norway’s Marine Farms for about 151 million Norwegian crowns ($25.32 million) to further its expansion abroad, it said yesterday. Nireus, Greece’s largest fish-farming group, bought about 6.56 million Marine Farms shares at Monday’s closing price of 23 crowns (2.85 euros) per share. Nireus shares closed 3.79 percent higher, at -4.38 on the Athens bourse. Marine Farms shares were not traded in Oslo. Nireus said buying the Marine Farms stake fell within its goal of internationalizing its production, which the group has implemented through acquisitions and direct investments in Turkey and Spain. Marine Farms has vertically integrated facilities in Spain producing about 7,200 tons of Mediterranean sea bream and sea bass annually. It also farms about 9,500 tons of salmon in Scotland and will start farming cobia fish in central America and Vietnam. Nireus, with an annual output capacity of 28,000 tons of fish is aiming for sales of 230 million euros and pretax profit of 25 million this year.
