Acquisition of Cumbrian Seafoods Approved
The UK Office of Fair Trading has cleared the acquisition of Cumbrian Seafoods by private equity company Lion Capital, which also owns Young’s Seafood, the UK’s leading chilled and frozen fish and seafood company. The OFT examined the implications of the deal, particularly with regard to whether it gave Young’s Seafood a dominant position in the smoked salmon market as well as greater market power in chilled seafood, but has decided not to refer it to the Competition Commission.
Lion Capital acquired Cumbrian Seafoods which is the UK’s leading independent seafood company, late last year from the administrator. Earlier this year, Young’s Seafood announced that, following a review of the operations of Cumbrian Seafoods and its subsidiary Border Laird, some 555 jobs were being cut from the business across its three sites in the UK – a state-of-the-art seafood processing plant at Seaham in County Durham, a smokery at Whitehaven in Cumbria and the Border Laird shellfish facility at Amble in Northumberland. According to Young’s Seafood, the fact that Cumbrian Seafoods went into administration indicated that its business model was not viable and major restructuring was required.
