Stehr Group Might IPO Soonff
10 October 2005
Australia
One of the Australia’s most successful aquaculture businesses, the Stehr Group, is believed to be raising $18 million to list on the stock exchange. The tuna-farming and aquaculture firm is understood to have consulted Adelaide stock brokers, shoring up support for an initial public offer.
Sydney-based Cartesian Capital is handling the deal. Cartesian’s Nick Mannings last week would not confirm or deny an IPO was likely, saying only that the Stehr Group was canvassing capital-raising options.
A Stehr Group spokesman reiterated this, adding the firm had “spoken to a number of people about thatâ€. Group founder Hagen Stehr announced in August the group would develop a breeding facility at Arno Bay, on Eyre Peninsula. Currently the company catches tuna in the wild, and then fattens them in holding pens off Port Lincoln.
Fully grown tuna weigh in at about 100kg and many are flown to Japan to be served raw as sashimi. Hagen Stehr told The Advertiser in August he had been researching tuna hatching -which would allow captive breeding- for five years.
