Morpol wants to buy Norwegian breeders

Wednesday was Polish Morpol listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and the company notifies 'enormous' growth ambitions.

The Polish salmon processor Morpol, which claims to be the world’s largest player in the processing of fish products, wants to buy Norwegian farmers.

The company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) John-Paul McGinley says during a presentation regarding the Company’s listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange Wednesday morning.

Polish company

Morpol has its headquarters in Polish Ustaka, where they also operates the world’s largest salmon processing plant.

“We doubled the capacity of the factory in 2009, and is now ten times larger than the second largest processing plant in the world” states McGinley.

According to Morpol, the company is now the largest customer of the large Norwegian salmon farmers.

“In 2009 we processed 66,000 tonnes of salmon products, equivalent to 8 percent of the total salmon exports” said McGinley, adding that it is therefore natural to go to the owners of a Norwegian aquaculture company.

“Norway is our most important supplier of fish, so it is clear that we are looking at opportunities here. I think it would be natural to buy something the size of 30 per cent of our total production” said McGinley.

Growth Ambitions

According to Morpol leadership, the company’s has “tremendous” growth ambitions that were decisive for the decision to take the company public.

In Germany, the world’s second largest market, we have a market share of smoked salmon at 63 percent. Now we want to strengthen our market position in other key markets, and therefore we felt that this was an appropriate time for the listing” said McGinley.

According to the company’s CEO, Jerzy Malek, the strong position in Norwegian seafood contributed to the election of landing on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

“We had originally planned to list in Poland, but since we have such close ties to Norway, and we could not have existed without Norway, we chose to do it here” said Malek.

Good Environment

He also points out the benefits because the company is part of a major Norwegian environmental seafood.

There are so many other players in this field that are registered here. It allows the analyst coverage and general interest in this market to be very much better in Norway than it is in Poland” says the CEO.

Morpol shares were introduced on the Oslo Stock Exchange at 22 kroner, and traded at 11:00 at 20.1 kroner.

Source: NRK