Schouw A/S : BioMar to build production plant in Australia

Danish company BioMar, which is the world's third largest manufacturer of quality feed for the fish farming industry, is to invest about DKK 300 million in the establishment of a production plant in Australia. By doing so, BioMar continues its global expansion. The establishment of the plant is currently subject to approval from the local Australian authorities, upon which the new Australian plant is expected to be completed in 2019 and will facilitate an annual capacity of 110,000 tonnes of fish feed.

Owned wholly by the Danish industrial conglomerate Schouw & Co., the Danish fish feed manufacturer now expands is operations in Australia and New Zealand. Through recent years, BioMar has increased volume of sales to the Australian market with supplies from own plants in Chile and Scotland. Schouw & Co. and BioMar have assessed that Australia and New Zealand constitute a steadily increasing market for quality feed to the fish farming industry, which is the reason for the business now investing about DKK 300 million in building its own production plant on the Australian continent.

- Since 2005, we have engaged in a very active ownership of BioMar, and have since then trebled the revenue of the business in 2016 to about DKK 9 billion. Together with the management in BioMar we have launched a new growth strategy named 'Shaping the future', where focus is on becoming even more global. Furthermore, the advantage of the unique R&D set-up and knowhow within sustainable production is utilised through an increased volume in markets, where the aqua culture is growing, and where there is a demand for high-end quality feed, says Jens Bjerg Sørensen, President of Schouw & Co.

And the Danish fish feed giant continues at full speed. Today about 20 percent of all fish farmed in Europe, South and Central America are fed with feed from one of BioMar's plants. Last year BioMar opened a plant in Turkey with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes, and this year BioMar's second Chinese plant will be completed in Wuxi near Shanghai. This plant will also facilitate an annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes.

At the same time, BioMar will expand capacity at the Norwegian plant in Karmøy, north of Stavanger, with no less than 140,000 tonnes a year. The expansion in Norway alone constitutes an investment of DKK half a billion.

- Growth is a key word - both to us and to the industry as a whole. The global market for aqua culture has now passed DKK 400 billion and grows by 5-6 percent each year. This obviously means that we too are to increase our capacity, explains Carlos Dias, CEO of BioMar Group.

Last year BioMar manufactured 966,000 tonnes of fish feed at its plants. In 2017, the capacity will be increased by about 200,000 tonnes, and from 2019 by additional 110,000 tonnes at the new plant in Australia. The plant shall primarily manufacture feed to the farming of species within which BioMar has great experience, and to which BioMar is among the most acknowledged suppliers in the market:

- Today fish feed is manufactured under very different conditions all over the world. Performance, raw materials and quality differ very much, and here we are indexed at the very top of the industry. We have a very long tradition for optimising recipes, raw materials and manufacturing conditions which enables us to deliver an extremely high level of performance and uniform quality by using a minimum of scarce resources. A growing number of farmers want to pay for this - not least due to consumers' growing demands for quality. This is one of our most important selling propositions in the global aqua culture market, concludes Carlos Diaz.

The investment in the new production plant in Australia will not affect the Schouw & Co. Group's earnings significantly before the fiscal year 2020.

For further information please contact:

• Jens Bjerg Sørensen, President, Schouw & Co., phone +45 8611 2222
• Carlos Diaz, CEO, BioMar Group, phone +45 8620 4970 and cdiaz@biomar.com
• Sif Rishøj, Director, Global HR and Corporate Communication,BioMar Group, phone +45 8620 4970 and sri@biomar.com

About BioMar

BioMar is the world's third largest manufacturer of quality feed for the fish farming industry. In 2016, the business generated revenue of DKK 8.9 billion and EBIT of DKK 581 million. BioMar has production plants in Norway, Chile, Denmark, Scotland, Spain, France, Greece, Costa Rica, China and Turkey, and supplies feed to about 80 countries worldwide to more than 45 different species. The BioMar group is owned by the Danish industrial conglomerate Schouw & Co. which is listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

For further information about BioMar please see www.biomar.com

For further information about Schouw & Co. please see www.schouw.dk