"Making the decision to sell our Indiana farm was difficult," AquaBounty Board Chair and CEO Sylvia Wulf said, noting the hard work made by the team over the last eight years to transform the facility and create operational excellence.
Photo: AquaBounty.
When presenting its Q3 results in November 2023, shortly after announcing a reverse stock split to remain on the Nasdaq, AquaBounty already said that it was exploring financing alternatives to strengthen its balance sheet and increase its cash position. Now the company has just announced that, as a first step, it has decided to put its Indiana salmon farm up for sale.
As its Board Chair and CEO pointed out, the objective is to focus on continuing its growth strategy, and, to do so, it needs to secure financing for its short- and long-term needs.
"Making the decision to sell our Indiana farm was difficult given the incredible team of passionate people who have worked hard over the last eight years to transform the facility and create operational excellence," Sylvia Wulf said in an e-mailed statement to WeAreAquaculture. "I want to offer a personal and heartfelt thanks to our Indiana team for all their efforts and contributions," she added.
AquaBounty has been growing transgenic Atlantic salmon in this operation since 2019 where, the land-based aquaculture company claims, "has succeeded in its objective to demonstrate the company's ability to grow and sell its salmon in the market." Something that, the company's CEO Sylvia Wulf emphasized, they will continue to do to prepare the farm for its new owner.
"We have built a strong operation there," she said, and added, "Our focus will be on harvesting the remaining GE Atlantic salmon for sale over the coming months to ready the farm for a new owner."
In the statement about the fundraising update for its investors, AquaBounty also reported that it has engaged Berenson & Co. as its investment bank to advise it on the Indiana farm sale process and additional financing alternatives for the company.
With the construction of its Ohio farm approximately 30 percent complete, it plans to prioritize the financing alternatives needed to resume and complete its construction, which was halted in June due to high costs.
"The proceeds from the sale of the Indiana farm will provide added liquidity to strengthen AquaBounty’s balance sheet," Wulf explained. "With our Ohio farm roughly 30 percent complete, we look forward to working with Berenson & Co. to secure the long-term financing necessary to resume construction and identify a buyer for the Indiana farm providing a long-term path forward for the company."
A path that will stop in Georgia, the first location for AquaBounty's international expansion. In November, the land-based company signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Noble Salmon, a company formed to build and operate a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) salmon farm in the former Soviet Republic, AquaBounty's first outside North America.
"This project will be the first instance of AquaBounty executing its strategy to enter additional salmon markets through local partnerships in a capital-lite structure," Wulf explained then.
Noble Salmon will bring engineering, material sourcing, and permitting expertise to the project, while AquaBounty will bring its experience operating successful RAS farms. Owned by Benish Group, its CEO, Meni Benish, is also co-founder of Archi, a leading engineering and real estate development company in the Republic of Georgia, as well as chairman of the Israel-Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. is a land-based fish farming expert raising Atlantic salmon in a vertically integrated manner, from broodstock to grow-out, to supply nearby markets. It currently operates an egg production farm located in Prince Edward Island, Canada, in addition to the grow-out farm located in Indiana, U.S., which is now for sale. Another farm is under construction in Pioneer, Ohio, U.S., and the company has a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Noble Salmon to build and operate a salmon RAS farm in the Republic of Georgia.