Alantra's Unión Martín buys Mauritanian fishing company SMPI

SMPI CEO Mohamed Lemine Laroussi retained a significant minority stake in the business and will continue to lead the company.

With this transaction, Unión Martín intends to reinforce its position in the fishing segment with the aim of pursing a vertical integration strategy across the entire value chain.

Alantra acquired a majority stake in Unión Martín in April 2018, while the company's management team retained a minority stake and continued to lead the business. The GP deployed capital from its Alantra Private Equity Fund III, which was launched in July 2015 and held a final close on its €450m hard-cap in February 2017.

Founded in 1998 and based in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Unión Martín specialises in fishing and distributing sea products – especially cephalopods, flatfish and finfish – and is the supplier of Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona. The company has two fish processing plants in Las Palmas and controls a fleet of 20 vessels through several exclusive supply agreements with different local shipowners, including four freezer fishing ships in Morocco owned by its subsidiary Palma Pesca.

Unión Martín sells its products in several countries, including Spain, Italy, Greece, the US, Japan, China and Uruguay. In 2017, the company generated revenues of around €80m.

Following this bolt-on, Alantra intends to further support Unión Martín's international expansion and boost its growth both organically and via additional acquisition.

Company
SMPI specialises in seafood products, primarily octopus, squid and cuttlefish. It operates three freezer vessels with a fishing capacity of 700 tonnes per year.

People
Alantra Private Equity – Gonzalo de Rivera (CEO).
Unión Martín – José Lorenzo Noda Martín (executive director).
Societé Mauritanienne pour la Pêche Industrielle – Mohamed Lemine Laroussi (CEO).

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