SalMar board gives go-ahead for intragroup merger with NTS

SalMar's board of directors approved an intragroup merger between SalMar and its wholly owned subsidiary NTS.

The approval, posted to the Oslo Børs on 19 October, followed an initial announcement on 18 September that stated SalMar's plan to execute a joint merger plan between the two companies. With the approval, SalMar is the acquiring company of NTS, and the merger has been filed with the Norwegian Registry of Business Enterprises.

Following the merger, all of NTS’s shares in SalMar will be transferred to SalMar. NTS, as of the 18 September announcement, owned 13,691,960 shares in SalMar – corresponding to 9.43 percent of the company's shares and voting rights in the company. After the merger, if approved by authorities, NTS will be dissolved.

The intragroup merger is the latest chapter in SalMar’s long-running effort to take control of NTS in a complicated set of mergers and acquisitions.

In August 2021, NTS beat out SalMar to purchase 70 percent of salmon-farming firm Norway Royal Salmon, with the company then merging with SalmoNor, which, in turn, was itself a combination of Midt-Norsk Havbruk and SalmoNor. The merger between NRS and SalmoNor formed what was at the time the world’s sixth-largest salmon farmer.

Then, in February 2022, SalMar made a successful bid to take over NTS after a majority of NTS’s shareholders accepted its share-purchase offer. That successful bid followed a competing bid from fellow salmon-farming company Mowi, which said it valued NTS as one of the leading producers of Atlantic salmon in Norway and Iceland.

SalMar finally got the go-ahead for the acquisition from the European Commission in November 2022, with the caveat that SalMar divest 16,346,824 shares in Arctic Fish Holding held by Norway Royal Salmon. With the acquisition of NTS, it was one of the company's subsidiaries. Those shares in Arctic Fish were sold off to Mowi, giving the latter company a controlling stake in the Icelandic salmon farmer.

As a result of the mergers and acquisitions, SalMar reported its Q3 2023 harvest was way up year over year. In a 10 October trading update, the company said it harvested 78,100 metric tons (MT) of salmon in the quarter, up from 53,600 MT in Q3 2022. The company also had record earnings in Q2 2023.

Photo courtesy of SalMar