Murmansk fish combine attracting investors via shares issue

Representatives of the BASIS project (Barents Sea Intermodale Service) have paid a visit to Murmansk Marine Fish Port where General Director of the province's fish processing combine OAO Murmansk Fish Combine (plc) Mikhail Zub has presented to the audience a construction project of a transport-container terminal with the future partners to be offered an issue of shares at 40 million USD for a pack of 31.6%.

The international delegation consisted of representatives of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, officials and traders of Norway, Scotland, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The Norwegian entrepreneurs have been mostly interested in the opportunity to transship containers in the fish port where there is a specially equipped place for transshipping refrigerated containers. However, the Russian hosts have complained to their guests of a shortage of such cargoes.

Mikhail Zub has also confirmed that his company has been facing a serious shortage of raw fish. In mid-August, for the first time in the current year 2007, a Norwegian vessel landed 105 tonnes of saithe purchased at the auction and the combine processed the amount within one day. Now the combine's large facilities occupying a space of 76,000 square meters mostly stay idle with the current load covering only 5-10% of production capacities.

In order to implement the transport-container terminal project the combine has made a decision to attract foreign investors via the above mentioned issue of shares.

According to Mikhail Zub, the funds to be raised would be spent to help the combine realize its strategic plans, in other words it will spend the money to develop large-scale investment projects. As the fishing fleets are not interested to satisfy the processors' demand in raw fish, probably in the near future transshipment and repacking of container cargoes in the port will come forward as the most important business.