Mowi Canada East sea facilities.
Photo: Mowi Canada East
Mowi has this morning announced it has reached a deal with Cooke Inc. to sell its Canada East salmon farming operations to the Canadian seafood company for CAD 225 million (EUR 139m / USD 158m).
The share purchase agreement covers Mowi’s 9,000 GWT Canada East operations and is being carried out on a debt-free basis. The transaction is expected to take place in the second half of 2026, subject to competition approvals and due diligence, the company said.
As a result of the planned sale, Mowi said it has reduced its 2026 volume guidance from 605,000 GWT to 600,000 GWT, and expects to record a write-down of approximately CAD 140 million (EUR 86m) in connection with the transaction.
The company stated the divestment will allow it "to further improve Mowi's farming portfolio and focus even more on core farming geographies."
Meanwhile, the agreement marks another expansion by Cooke Inc. in Atlantic Canada.
In March 2025, its Atlantic Canadian salmon farming division, Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd., acquired AquaBounty Canada’s former operations on Prince Edward Island, including hatchery and RAS facilities at Bay Fortune and Rollo Bay, to support smolt production for Cooke’s existing marine salmon farming sites in the region.
More recently, in February this year, Cooke's Kelly Cove Salmon received approval from the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board to expand its Liverpool Bay farm to a total of 20 pens.
Mowi Canada East was created in 2018, after Mowi acquired the Atlantic Canada aquaculture firms Gray Aqua Group and Northern Harvest the previous year. The business operates at sites in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, and employs more than 250 people in rural communities.
The sale to Cooke follows a challenging period for Mowi’s Canadian farming operations.
In its annual report for 2025, the company said Canada East had experienced a significant mortality incident in September 2025, due to low oxygen levels caused by record-warm seawater temperatures. The event, Mowi reported, impacted both costs and operations, reducing its harvest guidance and contributing to an operational EBIT loss of EUR 39.8 million for salmon of Canadian origin in 2025.
However, Mowi said the long-term potential for Canada East remained, noting that it had many unused licences in the region.
Meanwhile, Mowi said the future of its Canada West business remained uncertain due to the Canadian authorities’ decision to ban traditional marine salmon farming from mid-2029. In January this year, Mowi Canada West also lost its appeal over federal licence refusals for open-net salmon farms in British Columbia’s Discovery Islands.
