The first half of 2025 saw a 13% increase to $81 million in EBITDA, despite registering 5% lower revenues compared to H1 2024.
Photo: Camanchaca.
Camanchaca has published its financial statements for the first half of 2025, highlighting a 13% increase to $81 million in EBITDA, despite registering 5% lower revenues compared to H1 2024. This was driven by a 67% increase in EBITDA from its Salmon division, reaching $21 million, as well as a rise in its Mussels division, which grew from $400,000 to $3.6 million.
In contrast, the Fishing division saw a 12% decrease in EBITDA, dropping to $44 million, due to the decline in fishmeal and fish oil prices following the normalization of catches in Peru. This result was also impacted due to lower prices of frozen horse mackerel and a delay in sales, which led to higher inventory levels.
However, the Company's own and third-party pelagic catches processed at its plants were 42% higher than in H1 2024. Moreover, both the total catches processed in the north and the horse mackerel catches in the central-south zone have increased, as well as the semi-annual Atlantic salmon harvests in the Salmon division, which were 12% higher than in the same period of 2024.
Finally, Camanchaca has reported that the accumulated net income after taxes was $30 million, 8% higher than in H1 2024, and that Net Financial Debt reached $193 million, a reduction of $20 million since December 2024.
A new blow for companies in the sector
The conclusions drawn by Camanchaca's CEO, Ricardo García Holtz, regarding these results are that the main challenge facing the entire Chilean industry will be the salmon farming regulations and fisheries legislation, both driven by the current government.
"They do not represent a benefit for the country; they are own goals and unforced errors, unforgivable in an economic context where the country is crying out for growth," he specified.
At present, there is a national debate surrounding the Fisheries Law, which, according to Camanchaca, has taken quotas from the industrial sector and would reduce them by nearly 60% this year, putting its operations at risk.
"The government has once again proposed auctioning industrial quotas to pay for certain benefits it wants to provide to artisanal groups, without understanding that this was already rejected by the Senate during the discussion of the Fragmentation Law," García Holtz stated.