Escape from New York
Marine Harvest has announced that it is delisting its shares from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
According to a press release issued today, the decision was made by the Board due to the fact that “only about 3 percent of the worldwide trading volume in the shares…in the past 12 months occurred in the United States, while the costs of maintaining a NYSE listing and a registration under the Exchange Act are significant.”
CFO, Ivan Vindheim, explained: "The delisting and deregistration will enable us to simplify financial reporting processes, while maintaining the same high-quality IFRS compliant financial reporting and disclosures. Corporate governance will not be affected, as important governance bodies such as the Board Audit Committee will remain, in addition to an adequate level of internal controls. We will also maintain the same strong focus on serving our US investor base as we have had in the past."
The group was the first aquaculture firm to feature on NYSE, when it was initially listed on 28th January 2014 – an event that was heralded by the group’s CEO, Alf-Helge Aarskog, as “a big day for Marine Harvest and the salmon farming industry.”
He said at the time that: "The listing gives us exposure to a larger part of the US investment community, including those who are not mandated to invest in Norway. Marine Harvest should also benefit from being aligned to the land based protein companies listed in the US. These companies are generally larger than Marine Harvest, but we have some superior attributes in terms of margins and growth prospects which should be attractive to investors."
American ambitions
Somewhat ironically, news of the delisting coincided with their Q4 report, which emphasised the Group’s ambitions to strengthen its position in North America.
“We continue to strengthen the efforts in North America, with the new Dallas plant opening at the end of the fourth quarter and a new value-added facility opening in British Columbia in the end of the second quarter of 2017. Marine Harvest is also nominated to purchase farming assets on the East Coast of Canada, which in the future can further strengthen our supply to the North American market,” said CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog in the report.
