AquaBounty set to sell Indiana RAS farm

North American land-based salmon farmer AquaBounty Technologies is putting its Indiana site on the market in an effort to raise funds and strengthen its balance sheet.

In a stock market announcement yesterday, CEO Sylvia Wulf said: “We have been focused on securing funding for our near and long-term needs, so we can continue to pursue our growth strategy. Making the decision to sell our Indiana farm was a difficult one for us. We have built a strong operation there with a passionate and experienced team, and I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our team members in Indiana for the job they have done over the last eight years to transform the facility and create a well-run operation. Our focus will be on harvesting the remaining GE Atlantic salmon for sale over the coming months to ready the farm for a new owner.

“We are proceeding to pursue additional funding across multiple financing alternatives with the goal of securing our cash requirements in the coming months.”

AquaBounty is the first salmon farmer to produce GMO (genetically modified organism) fish at commercial scale. Its Atlantic salmon also have genes from two other salmonid species in order to achieve faster growth in RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) conditions.

The company’s main project is a 10,000-tonne RAS farm in Pioneer, Ohio, but last year this ran into problems with rising construction costs and AquaBounty has been looking for ways to raise more funding and strengthen its balance sheet.

The Ohio plant is now 30% complete, AquaBounty said, and in order to support this priority project the smaller RAS site in Albany, Indiana (pictured, above) is being put on the market. Investment bank Berenson & Co will be advising on the sale.

AquaBounty’s financial update for Q3, published in November, showed that the company saw revenue up 12% year-on-year to US $733,000 (£584m) but losses also up, by almost 13%, to US $6.1m (£4.9m)

Sylvia Wulf, CEO AquaBounty Technologies