Paul Steere, a 30-year veteran of New Zealand's largest salmon farmer has made his final exit from the company, stepping down from the board as a non-executive director and chair of the audit, finance and risk committee.
Steere began as New Zealand King Salmon's first CEO in 1994 and held the helm at the company for 15 years, until moving to a position on the board in 2009.
Steere has been an important figure in Australasian aquaculture, stepping up to chair Australian tuna farmer Clean Seas Tuna in 2010, a role which he exited in 2017.
Replacing Steere at NZKS is Paul Munro, who comes from a background in finance, including 24 years with Deloitte as a corporate finance partner.
Steere will officially resign March 31.
In July last year NZKS appointed Carl Carrington as its new CEO.
He replaced acting CEO Graeme Tregidga, who temporarily took the role last year after long-running CEO Grant Rosewarne stepped down.
In November the company signed a distribution agreement with China Resources Food Supply Chain (CRFSC) to be the exclusive importer and distributor of a range of its products in its increasingly important mainland Chinese market.
NZKS posted a huge improvement in earnings for the first half of its 2024 financial year after strategies to reduce mortalities at its salmon farms proved successful.
The company, which has been struggling with warming sea temperatures, pulled its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) into the black in the six months to July 31, hitting NZD 10.7 million (€5.9 million/$6.3 million).
This time last year, this number sat as a loss of NZD 12.7 million (€7.1 million/$7.5 million) after it suffered extraordinary mortalities through the summer months.
While sales income has been more stable on rocketing prices, the company also made improvements this year, with revenue hiking 14 percent to NZD 91.6 million (€50.9 million/$54.1 million). This was in part down to a 5 percent rise in sales volume to 3,024 metric tons.
A fall in mortality costs also contributed to stronger earnings, dropping 65 percent to NZD 7.8 million (€4.3 million/$4.6 million).
Read more
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