Maruha Nichiro snaps up majority stake in Van der Lee Seafish

Ben Wein

Mon, May 12, 2025, 9:33 AM 1 min read

Seafood Connection – a Dutch subsidiary of Japan’s Maruha Nichiro – has acquired a 70% majority stake in the Netherlands' Van der Lee Seafish.

The €40m ($44.4m) deal sees Seafood Connection acquire shares in Van der Lee Seafish's subsidiary King Fish Selection.

Seafood Connection is headquartered in the Dutch town of Urk and has operations in another ten countries, including Portugal, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India and China.

"It's true Seafood Connection is always eager to expand our product range and sales network for frozen seafood," said Jan Kaptijn, CEO of Seafood Connection. "Next to our organic growth, M&A is an important way to speed up our growth into the European market."

Van der Lee Seafish, also based in Urk, generated net sales of Y11.56bn ($78m) and a profit per share of Y54,101, according to a Maruha Nichiro filing announcing the dea.

In March, Tokyo-headquartered Maruha Nichiro, one of the world's largest fish companies, announced plans to change its trade name to Umios Corp.

In its most recent full-year accounts to the end of March 2024, the publicly-listed company booked a 1% increase in net revenue to Y1.03tn. Profit attributable to shareholders rose 12.1% to Y20.8bn.

However, operating income dropped 10.3% to Y26.5bn.

"Maruha Nichiro snaps up majority stake in Van der Lee Seafish" was originally created and published by Just Food, a GlobalData owned brand.

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