Market jitters drove down share prices for Norway's highest valued seafood companies Leroy, Grieg, Mowi and Austevoll following the release of their weaker second quarter earnings reported with the exception of Mowi being a record-breaker.
The share price of salmon farmer Grieg, who has operations spread globally, shrunk 8.83 percent to NOK 116.7 (€11.70/$13.00) thanks to a 16 percent decline in earnings after experiencing farming challenges in Scotland and Canada. The market cap stumbled to NOK 13 billion (€1.3 billion/$1.5 billion) as a result.
Austevoll Seafood, which is also the parent company of salmon farming giant Leroy Seafood, saw the second largest dip in share price of about 8.18 percent to NOK 86.40 (€8.70/$9.60) bringing down its market cap to NOK 17.5 billion (€1.8 billion/$2 billion).
Leroy also saw share prices decrease 5.75 percent to NOK 58.38 (€5.90/$6.50) when the markets opened today just as it reported a 12 percent fall in earnings because of lower realized prices in its farming segment and higher release from stock costs.
On a positive note, Mowi's share price only dropped 1.23 percent to NOK 225 (€22.60/$25.10) compared to when the markets closed yesterday after reporting record earnings in the second quarter report as the company increased harvest volumes and lowered costs across its operations.
Other giants will be releasing second quarter reports this week as well including SalMar, while Bakkafrost reported lower earnings in its Q2 results on Aug. 20.
