Norway Royal Salmon (NRS) has announced that it has raised around €198 million (NOK 1.91 billion) through a private placement of new shares to finance the purchase of SalmoNor from NTS. The salmon company issued 9,340,693 shares at a price of NOK 202 per share, thus ignoring indications received by NTS, the majority owner of NRS with 68% of the shares. All in all, the company's shares rose more than 4% at the close of trading on the Oslo stock exchange on Wednesday.
In the middle of this month, NRS announced its intention to carry out this operation. "The Board is firmly of the view that it must adhere to established agreements and fulfil its fiduciary duty to make judgements and resolutions that are in the best interest of all its shareholders", they said at the time. In their announcement to the stock exchange yesterday, they described the transaction as a success and added: "The private placement attracted significant interest from both existing shareholders as well new high quality Nordic and international institutional investors".
Meanwhile, the NTS board continues to show its support for SalMar's purchase. "A unanimous board concluded that the terms and conditions of the offer reflect the financial and strategic value of NTS and recommends that shareholders accept the offer", they said in a statement earlier this week and, just yesterday, announced on their website that SalMar will extend the acceptance period on the voluntary offer until April 29, 2022.