Profand's seafood processing plant in Vilagarcía de Arousa, province of Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain.
Photo: Profand Group.
At the end of last week, Profand Group announced that its majority shareholder, the holding company Lucasiñas S.L.U., had reached an agreement with Corporación Financiera Alba (Alba) to acquire its 23.7% stake in the Spain-based multinational seafood company for EUR 127 million. With this transaction, Lucasiñas regains Profand's full control.
The sale, which took place on Thursday, February 27, was carried out by exercising the put option in favor of Alba, which had become a shareholder of the Vigo-based company just over three years ago.
"Since becoming a shareholder in 2021, Corporación Financiera Alba has contributed to Profand's growth and leadership strategy in the sector, accelerating its geographic expansion and strengthening its position in the value chain," the multinational seafood company said in its release announcing the repurchase.
"To this end, significant investments have been made to increase production capacity, both in extraction and processing," Profand Group added.
The selling company, Alba, also Spain-based, is an investment company majority owned by the shareholders of the March Group - one of Spain's leading private family-owned business and financial groups.
Since becoming a shareholder of Profand in October 2021, the investment has generated capital gains of EUR 23 million for Alba, of which, it said, EUR 6 million will be included in the consolidated results for 2025.
The financial corporation also reported that, in addition to the funds contributed in the capital increase carried out at the time of its entry, in June 2023, Alba contributed an additional EUR 29 million to Profand through a subordinated loan for the purchase and refurbishment of a new production plant in the United States. This loan matures in May 2030.
Headquartered in Vigo, Galicia, Spain, Profand Group is a multinational in the fishing sector that covers the entire value chain from the origin, integrating fishing and aquaculture, processing and distribution of fish, cephalopods, and crustaceans.
With a presence on four continents, the company owns 24 vessels fishing cuttlefish, squid, jumbo flying squid, Illex squid, octopus, shrimp, hake, butterfish, prawn, and lobster in Morocco, the U.S., and Argentina. In addition, it has 3 aquaculture locations in Spain, Greece - it became the majority shareholder of Kefalonia Fisheries in March 2022 -, and Ecuador, where it farms sea bream, sea bass, trout, and shrimp.
The Group also has a segment dedicated to value-added products, which it processes both, directly on its vessels and in its 13 processing plants. Well-known in Spain for being a supplier of the supermarket chain Mercadona, to whom it serves packaged and ready-to-cook fish, Profand also markets through retail, and food service for the HORECA channel, and even acts as a trader by cross-selling and cross-purchasing products for different markets.
