It’s been an eventful 2018 for South African fishing firm Oceana Group. In a bid to secure a long-term partnership with US-based Daybrook Fisheries, former long-standing CEO Francois Kuttel left the company in February.

His successor – former CFO Imraan Soomra – was formally named at the beginning of this month. He joined the group back in July 2013; it was his first foray into the seafood sector.

Soomra is excited about Oceana’s future, predicting good growth opportunities ahead, both organically and through mergers and acquisitions (M&As).

“We want to grow our share in the global fish space; it’s a massive market,” he told IntraFish.

Within the next five years, the group wants to look at “downstream opportunities” as potential acquisition targets, in particular aquaculture.

Organic growth remains the short-term focus, but “we also will be growing through M&As,” Soomra said. “But I’m not pressed to make an acquisition. We hope to take a smart decision in the future but we are not in a rush to do so.

Oceana would like to “explore” aquaculture opportunities, as “wild harvesting is not going to grow,” Soomra said.

“Our challenge will always be that investors demand consistent returns in a business that's inherently volatile. We need to look at a level of diversification.”

The group will consider global opportunities, and targets are existing businesses. “We simply don’t have the aquaculture expertise to develop a Greenfield start-up.”

Southern African growth opportunities

Soomra predicts to see good results from Oceana’s fishmeal and fish oil business this year, backed by a positive menhaden season in the US due to good landings and improved oil yields.

And he expects growth southern African markets for its canned fish segment.

“I still believe there’s more growth to be extracted in southern Africa,” Soomra said. These opportunities lie in the number of meal occasions, he told IntraFish.

Currently, 90 percent of the sales come from South Africa itself. “We focused on South Africa in recent years because it was a good market for us but we will now look beyond that market.”

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A change in its pricing strategy already stimulated consumer demand in the first half of Oceana's fiscal year, which ended on March 30, resulting in a jump in sales volumes of 23 percent to 4.4 million cartons year-on-year.

“We focused on being reactive rather than proactively setting the price,” Soomra said. Efficiencies in its supply chain resulted in “incremental margins.”

Unaudited group operating profit before associate and joint venture income and fair value adjustments jumped 9 percent from ZAR 516 million (€32.9 million/$38.1 million) to ZAR 560 million (€35.7 million/$41.3 million), primarily due to a 51 percent increase in operating profit from Africa operations.

Group revenue rose 11 percent to ZAR 3.5 billion (€222.9 million/$258.3 million), compared to ZAR 3.1 billion (€197.4 million/$228.8 million) the year before. This was driven by an 18 percent improvement in Africa operations revenue and mainly due to improved sales volumes.

"We're not hungry for volume growth without incremental value growth," Soomra summarized Oceana's strategy.

Period of stability

In the short term, the board's finalization of Soomra as new CEO will give "stability to the business and our shareholders."

He and Kuttel had worked closely for the past five years before the former CEO's departure in February. Today, Kuttel is responsible for handling the US fleet, and a shareholder.

"We established a good working relationship ... and that will continue," Soomra said.

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Oceana is still in the market for a new CFO, with whom Soomra hopes to establish a similarly strong partnership.

Other areas Soomra hopes to focus in the coming years are cementing Oceana's position "as a good employer in South Africa," exploring options of renewable energy supplies and build up a strong leadership team.

"We've grown fairly quickly in the last five years," he added. "What's important now is to develop our leadership team, our executive skillset and expertise."

Getting skilled people into the seafood sector is also a top priority. "Part of our agenda is transforming our workforce from a demographic point of view, also in terms of gender," Soomra said.

"There is talent coming through from various sector, engineers, finance people -- but one needs to bring this talent into the seafood sector," he told IntraFish. "I'm a primary example: Five years ago I didn't know the seafood business; but you can learn. The challenge now is making seafood attractive to talent."