Norway Royal Salmon, Midt-Norsk Havbruk call off merger

Norway Royal Salmon ASA (NRS) and Midt-Norsk Havbruk AS (MNH) have confirmed that the merger discussions between the two salmon farming companies have been terminated.

As previously reported by SeafoodSource, NRS and MNH’s parent company NTS ASA informed the Oslo Stock Exchange (Oslo Børs) on 13 October 2020 that they had entered into talks over a potential merger.

A brief announcement made to Oslo Børs on 16 November states, “These discussions have now been terminated and the companies will continue their business operations as before.”

Trondheim, Norway-headquartered NRS owns a maximum allowed biomass of 36,085 metric tons (MT) in Troms and Finnmark. It also has minority interest in three associated Norwegian fish farming companies which collectively own 11 fish-farming licenses, as well as Arctic Fish in Iceland, which has licenses for farming 11,800 MT of salmon.

Rørvik, Norway-based MNH has 10 salmon-farming licenses and its own processing plant. It has been owned by aquaculture services group NTS since 2017.

NTS became the largest shareholder in NRS in the first quarter of this year, when it merged with the Froy Group. It also owns more than 62 percent of Fiskeldi Austfjarda in Iceland, which has a production capacity of 20,800 MT.