Consolidation in the seafood industry has been roaring at breakneck speed over the past decade, and based on the continuing flood of deals, that's not likely to end anytime soon.
With all the buy-side interest, it's no surprise that a lot of companies -- family-owned groups in particular -- are seeking the exit.
Some companies are eager to make the move, but wringing their hands over the host of challenges that come along with what Antarctica Advisors Managing Partner and founder Ignacio Kleiman calls "selling your baby."
Around 90 percent of the transactions that Antarctica advises on are family-owned, Kleiman said, and in an industry with a rich history and fiercely passionate people, a sale goes beyond a simple transaction.
"Emotions do play a role," Kleiman said. In addition to financial advisor and investment banker, he said he often finds himself in the role of "trusted friend" and "rabbi" during the sometimes stressful process.
Plenty of companies are eager to jump in. On paper, the industry is an easy one to roll up: throw the production together on one end, the distribution on the other. That's how a lot of external buyers (we're looking at you, private equity) tend to view the space, before they step in and realize that it's not that simple.
"Seafood is really a collection of many different verticals that produce different types of seafood, and they are in many ways not correlated," Kleiman said.
"If you're a producer of vannamei in Ecuador and a fishing company for cod in Iceland, yes they're both seafood, but they are absolutely unrelated to each other."
The macro-economic climate has improved somewhat for M&As, Kleiman and other financial experts have said, so we could be in for a big year of deals.
"There's a lot of runway still in terms of consolidation both horizontally and in terms of the value chain itself," Kleiman said.
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