Tri-Marine International (Pte) Ltd. completed the previously announced sale of its tuna and swordfish loins and steak business to Far Ocean Sea Products Pte Ltd by handing over its Singapore production facility on 31 March.
Tri-Marine, who is one of the world’s premier independent strategic suppliers of tuna to the global tuna industry, decided to sell its modern fish processing plant and its frozen swordfish business in order to focus on especially raw frozen tuna. . Beside this plant Tri-Marine business interests include fishing, trading, processing and marketing primarily of frozen tuna and tuna products
"This was not an easy thing to do, because Tri-Marine has had its own wharf and processing plant in Singapore since 1972. Business-wise, however, it makes a lot of sense to redeploy assets from the mature swordfish business to our growing tuna supply business." stated Joe Hamby, managing director of Tri-Marine.
He added, "We are blessed with a lot of opportunity in the tuna supply business. Recently, we signed supply contracts (for whole round frozen tuna) with the major tuna brands in the U.S.A. and in Europe. We are working hard at rationalizing and refurbishing our large Tuna Fishing Fleet. We are expanding and diversifying our production capacity for finished product and for cooked and cleaned tuna loins. This year we have increased our time chartered reefer carrier fleet. This allows us to better serve our contract and owned purse seiner fleets as well as to insure availability of reefer capacity for delivery of tuna to our plants and customers."
The swordfish business and the Singapore base were operated by Tri-Marine’s subsidiary company Tri-Oceanic Pte Ltd. Tri-Oceanic will continue to operate a ship agency business in Singapore. Tri-Marine will maintain its offices in Singapore as well as those in American Samoa, Thailand, Spain, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Federated States of Micronesia, Taiwan, Panama, Italy, U.S.A. and Solomon Islands.
Both Tri-Marine and Far Ocean were formed in Singapore in 1972 and 1971. From its beginnings as a small family business, Far Ocean has become one of the top seafood processing and trading companies in Southeast Asia. Far Ocean's activities include wholesale, import, export and trading of Norwegian, Japanese and trawler fish products, processing and marketing of a variety of the long line fish.
Clifford Chen Henry Quek
