Cooke Seafood Group has initiated an offer to acquire Uruguayan seafood company Fripur S.A.
Cooke's exclusive investment banking advisor for the deal is Antarctica Advisors.
The acquisition offer was in line with the Court's specifications, which include deposit of a guarantee and an economically sustainable business plan that takes care of gradual reinstating of workers.
In order to achieve compliance with the formal requirements of the court, the company has collaborated with Irrazabal & Asociados and Antarctica Advisors at the time of tender opening.
Cooke Seafood USA has been established by Cooke family and owns the Wanchese Fish Company.
The Cooke family also own Cooke Aquaculture, an aquaculture group in Canada.
The Wanchese Fish Company has operations in the US and Argentina and a sales office in France. It claims to have a business model with profitable global operations. It harvests, processes and distributes a wide variety of seafood products to customers in the US and Europe.
It has relationships with major food service and retail clients across the globe.
Since 2013, Fripur had been in financial trouble and its condition further detoriated when Nigeria reduced imports of croaker.
In July 2014, Fripur fell into bankruptcy and had debts between $30m and $50m.
As a result of tough global competition and economic crisis in Europe, the fishing industry of Uruguay has been experiencing tough times.
