NTS founder faces battle on two fronts
ONLY a few months on from its victory in the bidding war for Norway Royal Salmon, Norwegian shipping-to-seafood group NTS ASA faces both a shareholder revolt and a play from rival Mowi to take over the company.
As this issue of Fish Farmer goes to press, reports are suggesting that a rebel group hoping to take control of NTS may have the voting power to win later this month.
The so-called “Rørvik group” narrowly failed to remove the NTS main man Helge Gåsø and his allies on the board, including his son,Anders, at an extraordinary general meeting on 21 January.
The group’s proposal to remove Gåsø and Chairman Odd Reidar Øie,was voted down by 50.14%. However, two new board members were voted on in the shape of Hans Martin Storø and Nils Andre Williksen, the son of Nils Martin Williksen, one of the rebel group leaders.
A new EGM has been called for 18 February and the financial press in Norway are speculating that the rebels could succeed this time. According to the Oslo investor newsletter
BørsXtra, the margin in favour for the current board was just 350,000 votes, but since that meeting the rebels have been gaining support.
BørsXtra reported that the current shareholder list shows that the private stock company
Haspro AS had purchased 1.2 million shares from the Alfred Berg Fund, equal to about 1% of the company.
The General Manager of Haspro is Solvår Hallesdatter Hardesty, who the Rørvik group failed to get on the board at the last meeting. Haspro now has a 9.5% ownership interest in NTS, according to BørsXtra.
Meanwhile, the NTS rebels have formally withdrawn their earlier offer of NOK 105 per share in the face of a higher bid from Mowi of NOK 110 a share. In an announcement made on 24 January to the Oslo Stock Exchange, Mowi said:“Mowi
ASA is pleased to announce that it intends to launch an offer to acquire all of the shares of NTS ASA at NOK 110 per share, to be settled 50% in cash and 50% in shares issued in Mowi.”
The offer price of NOK 13.8bn represents, Mowi said, a premium of 18.3% over the closing price of the shares on 14 January 2022. Mowi’s statement also had warm words for NTS’ achievements. It said:“Mowi has followed the NTS Group for several years and is impressed by how the employees, management team and owners have developed the NTS Group into one of the leading producers of Atlantic salmon in Norway and Iceland.”
NTS beat SalMar in the race to acquire Norway Royal Salmon (NRS), and last month announced the merger of NRS with SalmoNor, where Helge Gåsø is also Chairman.