Måsøval restructures as salmon tax looms
Family-owned fish farming company Måsøval is to carry out a major reorganisation of its business, which it says is necessary to address its growing tax burden.
A general meeting is scheduled for later this month, to formally adopt the plan, which involves concentrating the biomass and all food fish operations into one company.
It is less than a week since the Norway-based Måsøval announced the appointment of Anders Hagestande as its new Chief Financial Officer, although the move was probably in place before that news broke.
Måsøval has described the plan as a “proposal for fission and triangular merger”. It says the purpose is to “purify” Måsøval as a holding company, as well as to isolate commercial food fish permits in one company, Pure Farming AS.
“Furthermore, it is desirable to transfer certain operating assets and employees with associated assets, rights and obligations to one company, Aqua Farms Vartdal AS,” the announcement adds. The shareholder set-up will be the same as before.
Måsøval’s 2023 second quarter results were disappointing when compared to other similar sized salmon companies.
Revenues fell by NOK 129m (£9.6m) to NOK 805m (£60m) while its operational EBIT more than halved down from NOK 500.6m (£37m) in Q2 2022 to NOK 210.5m (£15.6m) this time.
The company blamed higher feed prices and costs for treating salmon lice along with lower harvests for the reversal.
It also announced the scrapping of its Aqua Semi closed roof facility designed to open up new sea farming areas and reduce lice, claiming that the salmon tax made it economically unviable.
