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Clean Seas Unveils Very Ambitious Bluefin Farming Plansff

3 October 2008 Australia

By Nigel Austin

Eyre Peninsula fish farmer Clean Seas Tuna has put forward an ambitious strategy to improve its performance and expand the business.

Key corporate goals include the production of up to 20,000 tons of farmed finfish a year.

In a business update to the Australian Securities Exchange yesterday, it detailed strategies to overcome rapid growth pains and the challenges of pioneering a new industry.

The company, founded and chaired by Port Lincoln fisherman Hagen Stehr, has embarked on a comprehensive efficiency drive. It has also ordered a review of every step of the business, all senior positions and the board’s composition.

Its key corporate goals include the production of 10,000 tons of commercially-produced southern bluefin tuna, 7500 tons of kingfish and 2500 tons of wild-caught tuna.

The company is also considering the purchase of the Stehr family’s private tuna business next year, but not its tuna quota, which it proposes to lease.

Clean Seas said its principal goal is the successful commercialization of its tuna breeding program, with initial quantities of fingerlings produced this summer. The first commercial quantities of fingerlings are expected to be produced the following summer, with revenue from initial sales starting 18 months later in July, 2011.

The report shows the desire of Clean Seas to improve the performance and efficiency of the business and to reduce the large trading range of its shares, from 62c to $2.27 in the past 12 months.

Its largest shareholders include Macquarie, GIC and the Lowy family, apart from the Stehr family with 54 per cent.