Premier Fishing (PremFish), which will be spun out of African Empowerment Equity Investment (AEEI) into a separate JSE listing in February 2017, is looking for a major medium-term profit boost from its expanded abalone farming operation in Gansbaai. Speaking at an investor tour last week, AEEI CEO Khalid Abdulla said about R220m of the R635m PremFish aimed to raise via a private placement would be earmarked to expand the farm’s annual production from 120 tonnes to 320 tonnes. Abalone is grown mainly for the export market under the Atlantic Abalone brand and is believed to have earned PremFish between R15m to R20m in the past financial year. Abdulla stressed that profitable abalone farming revolved around scale. "The net margins in the abalone farming business are high — and can come in at 35%. It’s not a complicated business, although there is considerable capital outlay at the start. So if we add more scale to the operation, there will be a big boost for PremFish’s bottom line in t...
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