Barramundi raises £8.8m for growth in Brunei

The Barramundi Group has raised the equivalent of £8.8m to expand its fish farming operations in Brunei.

The company announced yesterday that it had secured the credit facility, of BND $15m, from a Bruneian financial institution.

The Singapore-based Barramundi Group farms the fish of the same name, also known as Asian sea bass. It has operations in Singapore and, at a small scale, in Brunei, but last year its Australian farms were placed into administration and subsequently sold to Australian salmon producer Tassal, which itself is part of the global Cooke group.

The latest funding for the Barramundi Group, subject to finalisation and completion, will be used to fund the first phase of the Brunei expansion and pivot to what the company calls “BG 2.0”.

The first steps will be, the company said:

• The construction of a RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) Broodstock and Hatchery centre, complementing the existing RAS Nursery operations; and
• Immediate deployment of sea cages at Barramundi’s existing sea lease, Pelong Rocks, planned for mid-2024.

Barramundi said: “With the new broodstock and hatchery facility, the Brunei operations will be able to capitalise on the genetic nucleus from our Singapore broodstock – naturally bred and selected over 20 years – to spawn and culture fry and fingerling within Brunei. The capacity of this facility will allow Brunei to be sufficient not only for the Phase 1 Pelong Rocks grow-out cages, with an annual capacity of 1,000 tonnes, but also for Phase 2 requirements of the planned 3,000 tonne land-based RAS facility.

“The immediate deployment of Pelong Rocks will help to smoothen the gap in production and revenues, but also provide the Group with an opportunity to re-enter the China market – one of our largest and key markets, previously unreachable with a Singapore-grown product.”

The board described the successful fundraising exercise as “encouraging” following the many difficulties the group had faced in recent years.