Fishing vessel belonging to PescaChile. (Photo: PescaChile)
PescaChile’s creditors approved a deal to sell the firm to Friosur for about USD 45 million. Out of that total, USD 37 million is ensured and the rest amounting to USD 8 million will depend on whether the fishing quotas between 2015 and 2016 are recovered, Diario Financiero reported.
According to the Chilean newspaper, the memorandum of the agreement has already been signed and just some administrative procedures remain to be carried out.
Industry sources indicate that Friosur may have significant synergies with its acquisition, as it operates in the same area where the former subsidiary to the Galician multinational firm Pescanova is located.
On 18 September, Pescanova explained to the National Securities Market Commission of Spain (CNMV) that the transaction will have no impact on the group’s balance because "neither PescaChile nor its subsidiaries that have already been awarded (Acuinova Chileand Nova Austral) have been part of the scope of consolidation in the financial statements for the year ended 31 December, 2013."
Besides, the firm assured it ignored the conditions under which the sale of the two salmon subsidiaries had taken place and to date no new relevant data confirming the sale of PescaChile has been sent.
PescaChile had entered creditors’ meeting in May 2013 and in accordance with Chilean law, it had to be auctioned if its parent – Pescanova – did not carry out an asset rebalancing process before but it failed after several attempts at negotiation.
With the sale of the company, Pescanova is left without its last asset of its business in Chile.
The newspaper La Voz de Galicia recalled that according to the business plan designed by PwC during the creditors' meeting proceedings, PescaChile had a hake fishing quota of 47 per cent, which the Galician multinational firm has now lost.