Atlantic Sapphire raises a further £27m for Florida site

Florida-based land salmon company Atlantic Sapphire raised around NOK 369m (£27.5m) in a new share issue in Oslo, where the company is listed, last night.

The issue at NOK 1.20 per share was fully subscribed with its largest shareholder Nordlaks Holdings of Norway buying shares worth NOK 52m (£3.8m).

The extra money will be used to ensure sufficient leeway for the company’s phase one plans across the Atlantic. The share price dropped by around 17% in Oslo this morning on the news that Atlantic Sapphire had gone back its shareholders to raise more money.

Atlantic Sapphire had gender maturation problems last year which led to lower income and the company therefore needed to raise extra capital. It has also been struggling with high water temperatures at its Florida site.

In a production update, Atlantic Sapphire said that the temperatures in the growth systems had stabilized around 14°C after the delivery of new coolers in September 2023

It also said that all cooling systems had performed according to expectations in the five months since installation. The batches transferred to growth tanks after the new cooling installations show strong growth, the company added, with performance in line with expectations or better.

General farming conditions were “stable and support good biomass growth”, the statement said.

Atlantic Sapphire says its phase one facility is in operation, which provides the capacity to harvest approximately 10,000 tons (HOG) of salmon annually.

The company is currently constructing its phase two expansion, which will bring total annual production capacity to 25,000 tons, and it has a long-term targeted harvest volume of 220,000 tons.

In November the company, when it announced that its water temperatures were back under control, said that the Hong Kong-based venture capital fund VLTCM had bought a 10% stake in the business through the purchase of 79.6 million shares.