Lumarine Tjeldbergodden facility, located in Tjeldbergodden Biopark, in Aure municipality, Møre og Romsdal county, Vestlandet region, Norway.
Photo: Ode.
Ode today announced the acquisition of seafood company Lumarine AS, which currently operates Norway's largest juvenile cod production facility at Tjeldbergodden, in addition to another facility in Tømmervåg, dedicated to lumpfish production, both located in Aure municipality.
Like the Norwegian cod farmer's headquarters, which is located in Ålesund municipality, Lumarine's facilities are also in Møre og Romsdal county, Vestlandet region, Western Norway.
To carry out the acquisition, Ode has reached an agreement with Kistefos-controlled Holding Akvaservice, which, together with shareholders representing more than 90% of the shares, has agreed to sell their shares to the cod farmer with whom it had been working closely since 2022. The remaining shareholders have been offered the opportunity to sell their shares on the same terms.
Although the press release issued by Ode does not detail the terms of the purchase, Lumarine is listed on Euronext NOTC, so the share purchase agreement is public. It states that if all shares are sold pursuant to the agreement, which sets the purchase price per share at NOK 0.5680, the total consideration for the sellers' shares will amount to NOK 84,139,213.00 (rounded), equivalent to approximately EUR 7.5 million.
Lumarine's cod juvenile production uses a flow-through system in which seawater is heated through heat exchange with surplus heat from local industry. As Ode pointed out, this enables a highly sustainable production model with low biological and technological risk.
As mentioned above, both companies have worked closely together since 2022 in the juvenile cod production facility at Tjeldbergodden, which, last year, produced approximately 1,500 tons. Ode said the joint experience has been positive, providing a strong foundation for further development under its management.
Following the acquisition, the Norwegian cod farmer plans to invest significantly in further modernization and scaling of production to reach 5,000 tons of juvenile cod by 2027. According to Ode's statement, this capacity will be necessary to support a potential annual production volume of around 100,000 tons of market-size cod cod over the next five years.
It should be remembered that Ode is not only Norway's largest producer of farmed Atlantic cod, but in 2025 it was also the country's largest supplier of cod, being the first time a cod farming company achieved such a position.
"We are very pleased to announce this acquisition. We know Lumarine, the organization, and the facility well after a very successful collaboration over the past five years. Bringing this fully into Ode is a natural and strategically sound step for us. It represents a key milestone in strengthening our fully integrated value chain for cod production," said Ode's CEO, Ola Kvalheim.
As its CEO noted, the purchase of Lumarine represents a significant step in Ode's continued development as a leading, fully integrated producer of farmed cod. Through this acquisition, the company lays the foundation for its future growth and what it describes as "a clear modernization and professionalization of juvenile cod production."
The Norwegian cod farmer also noted that Lumarine has significant potential for further development and expansion beyond the 5,000 tons planned after the acquisition, and therefore, it hopes to continue developing "the strong professional environment" in Tjeldbergodden and strengthening cooperation with the local community in Aure.
"We look forward to fully integrating the organization and production into Ode. This provides greater predictability, allows us to invest in improved biological control, and strengthens our ability to deliver even better juvenile fish in the future," Kvalheim said.
"At the same time, we are welcoming highly skilled employees who already have extensive experience with cod juvenile production and who know Ode and our way of working through the long-standing cooperation between the companies," he added. Precisely, a former Lumarine employee, Thor Arne Hangstad, is the current Head of Juveniles at Ode, after joining the company in February 2024.
Lumarine's acquisition is Ode's third investment news so far this year. Previously, the company announced the acquisition of three more cod farming sites in Vestland from the whitefish group Vesterålen Havbruk in January, and, in February, it reported investment in ten new deep-farming units, following the positive results from its first production cycle with submersible cages in its Alida site in Volda municipality, also in Møre og Romsdal county.
