It’s all systems go for PFF’s JSE listing

PREMIER Food and Fishing (PFF) is all set for its listing on the JSE following successful investor roadshows in Johannesburg and Cape Town this week.

The company is set to be listed next month with an estimated 117million shares, representing 45percent of PFF’s equity post listing valued at R526.5 million.

Group chief executive Khalid Abdulla said the company controlled 60percent of the local rock lobster exports to the US and held 12percent of the total west coast of supplies to the Far East.

He said the company was also home to the third-largest pilchard allocated quota of 7 percent.

“Our products are of very high quality and are highly regarded in America,” he said.

“As AEEI, the major shareholder, we have been very happy with our returns in this the food and fishing business.”

Integrated

Premier Fishing is the vertically integrated food and fishing division of the JSE-listed AEEI – African Equity Empowerment Investments – and is the largest black-owned and controlled fishing company in the South Africa.

It also owns an abalone aquaculture farm in Gansbaai, which Abdulla described as a high-margin, low-risk business with a 70percent gross profit margin.

He said the farm produced 120 tons of cultured abalone a year and was running at 100percent capacity.

He said over the past two years the company had invested millions of rand in the alternative energy sector at the farm.

Abdulla said the company was set to increase the supply of its much-sought-after abalone product to its overseas client base.

Samier Saban, the chief executive of Premier Fishing, said in an earlier interview this month that the abalone operation employed more than 100 people and, with further expansion, it would increase its workforce.

“The planned expansion, once completed, would also have alternative energy (solar) installed to support the additional energy required and place less pressure on the electricity grid, which would be enough to benefit the community of Gansbaai,” said Saban.

“We also support smallscale subsistence fishermen and run a corporate social investment (CSI) programme to develop communities within which we work.”

Saban said once the expansion was completed, the farm would be able to produce up to 320 tons of abalone over the next three years.

PHOTO: HENK KRUGER Khalid Abdulla, PFF’s group chief executive and deputy chairman, giving a business overview of the company at the Cape Town leg of the roadshow yesterday, said the company controlled 60 percent of local rock lobster exports to the US.