Salmon farm companies make waves

Published on Friday 10 December 2010 15:34

TWO companies made news in the salmon farming sector yesterday as the chairman and chief executive of one stood down and a second was sold to Dutch buyers.

Chairman Jim Mullins and chief executive Mike Corbett left the Scottish Salmon Company (SSC), while Port Glasgow-based Lithgows sold its Landcatch business to Hendrix Genetics.

Mullins and Corbett guided the former Lighthouse Caledonia business through an 18-month restructuring and refinancing programme that culminated with SSC being floated on Oslo's Axess junior stock market.

Robert Brown, who was managing director of Lehman Brothers from 1978 to 1994, succeeds Mullins as chairman.

SSC named Bill Hazeldean, a former managing director of Macfish, as its chief executive.

Hazeldean founded Macrae Foods in 1994, growing the company's turnover to 96 million before selling it to Young's Seafoods in 2004. In 2006, he founded Adelie Foods, which now has a turnover of 230m.

Dr Stewart McLelland - a former Waitrose technical manager - has been appointed as SSC's chief operating officer.

News of the boardroom changes came as family-owned Lithgows revealed it had signed a letter of intent to sell its Landcatch and Landcatch Natural Selection (LNS) businesses to Netherlands-based Hendrix Genetics for an undisclosed sum.

Landcatch turns over about 4m and has some 30 staff, while LNS has about ten workers and revenues of about 2m.

A spokeswoman for Lithgows - which owns a variety of businesses, including Buckie shipyard and the Marine Resource Centre near Oban - said all the existing jobs at the two firms would be retained and that further posts would be created.

Lithgows traces its roots back to 1874 and was once the biggest ship-builder on the Clyde. Sir William Lithgow founded Landcatch in the late 1970s.