Rabobank expects rough seas ahead for aquaculture
Rabobank expects challenging global conditions for salmon producers to improve before those of their shrimp-focused peers, but both have challenges to content with.

The bank’s Global Aquaculture Update for the second half of 2023 examines global markets for salmon, shrimp and fish meal. Rabobank analysts wrote that each of these markets face a second half likely to be the most challenging period since the pandemic, due largely to softening demand and the prospect of higher fish meal prices.

The report crowns European salmon production as the world’s most profitable aquaculture industry, following a period of constricted supply, which is expected to ease in Q3. Rabobank notes Norwegian salmon producers’ outlook has been clouded by the imposition of a 25 percent resource tax earlier this year that is compounded by an existing 22 percent corporate tax.

“It is not yet determined exactly how profitability will be estimated or how land-based, closed-containment and offshore production will be considered.

“We expect the tax will have negative effects on investment and supply growth in Norway,” analysts wrote. “The next important event will be the parliamentary election in 2025, as the opposition parties, if victorious, have promised to reverse the tax.”

Potentially heightened fish meal prices resulting from June’s El Niño-inspired cancellation of Peru’s fishing season is among the factors Rabo says are conspiring to present especially challenging conditions to the shrimp industry.

In addition to persistently weak demand in China and the US, and potential oversupply due to growth in Ecuadorian production expected to reach 18 percent by the end of 2023, Rabobank writes shrimp producers should expect high fish meal costs to continue.

“High prices will undoubtedly create hard choices for feed formulators. However, with the current easing of soymeal prices, we expect aqua feed prices to stay relatively stable in 2H 2023, with formulators becoming more reliant on vegetable proteins and oils.”

Wines

Carlyle’s Accolade talks
Further media reports have emerged in Australia about a potential sale of part or all of The Carlyle Group’s Accolade Wines, the country’s largest privately-owned wine company.

The Australian Financial Review has reported that US firm Platinum Equity has been running the rule over the business, although there was little more detail than that on how advanced its plans may or may not be.

Carlyle brought in Rothschild & Co earlier this year to pursue refinancing options for Accolade’s large debt pile, and was also reported to be exploring a potential sale of its House of Arras brand, as well as other in-house brands and assets.

The Carlyle Group acquired the business for A$1 billion ($660 million; €598 million) in 2018 from CHAMP Private Equity.

It has been a difficult few years for some of Australia’s largest winemakers, as the effective closure of the Chinese export market during the pandemic led to a scramble for new avenues into which to deploy product.

Ongoing inflation and cost-of-living pressures have also seen a ‘premiumization’ effect take hold, with customers buying fewer but more expensive bottles of wine, leading to a decline in the below-A$10-per-bottle segment.

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