Marine Harvest's announcement it would withdraw its voluntary offer for outstanding shares in salmon-farming and fish feed rival Cermaq leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air, the biggest being: What now?
Maarten Bakker, analyst at ABN AMRO, said the news is “not entirely unexpected," given the stance of the Norwegian government.
Marine Harvest is now back to square one, he told IntraFish. “But I’m not sure this is the end-game yet.”
The company has several different options now, he said: Either increase the bid, “which the company said it wouldn’t,” focusing on building up its own feed business, or talking to Schouw about acquiring Biomar.
“But
