Financing update

Bonds and capital markets

We have acted on a significant number of high-yield and investment-grade bond transactions for leading seafood companies, advising on everything from initial structuring and documentation to trustee arrangements and intercreditor matters. Our involvement spans inaugural issuances, tap issues, and refinancings, giving us a thorough understanding of the covenants, security packages, and disclosure standards that the market expects in this space.

Bank financing

On the lending side, we regularly advise on bilateral loans, revolving credit facilities, acquisition finance, and large-scale syndicated facilities for borrowers and lenders active in aquaculture, wild-catch fisheries, and seafood processing. We understand the industry's seasonal cash-flow dynamics, asset base, and regulatory environment – knowledge that translates directly into efficient negotiations and commercially sensible documentation.

Sustainability-linked finance

A growing trend

A clear trend we are seeing in the seafood sector is the increased adoption of sustainability-linked loan terms in bank financing. More and more facilities now incorporate margin ratchets and other incentive mechanisms tied to measurable sustainability KPIs. In our experience, the KPI triggers most frequently seen in recent seafood transactions focus on:

Mortality rates: Reflecting animal welfare and operational efficiency.
Biological feed conversion ratio: A key measure of how efficiently feed input is converted into fish growth, with direct implications for both cost management and environmental impact.
Greenhouse gas emissions: Lenders are increasingly tying KPIs to emission reduction targets across the full value chain, encompassing direct emissions from the borrower's own operations (fuel and electricity) as well as indirect emissions from purchased goods and services such as feed production, transport, and packaging.

These metrics reflect the sustainability priorities that investors, regulators, and consumers increasingly demand of the seafood industry, and lenders are responding by embedding them directly into financing terms. We advise both borrowers and lenders on how to structure these provisions – from defining robust and verifiable KPI baselines to drafting the reporting, verification, and consequence mechanics that ensure the sustainability framework works in practice.

Our team combines technical banking and finance expertise with genuine sector knowledge. We know the players, the deal structures, and the regulatory landscape.

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