Officials pore over competing FPI bids

Officials with the Newfoundland and Labrador government have begun a review of competing bids for most of the operations of Fishery Products International.

The government has demanded the right to review the two bids, which FPI selected from a broader range.

According to sources, the two bids are from Corner Brook-based Barry Group and from Ocean Choice, a St. John's-based company allied with the Penney Group of Companies.

FPI was close to signing a deal last week with Corner Brook businessman Bill Barry who already owns substantial interests in the seafood industry when the government intervened.

Barry's offer is said to have been more lucrative than the Ocean Choice bid.

The two companies are interested in FPI's plants, ships and quotas, although Ocean Choice's bid also includes FPI's offshore shrimp and scallop business.

St. John's-based FPI, a former Crown corporation, is governed by the provincial FPI Act. Last week, Fisheries Minister Tom Rideout said the province would not allow a sale of FPI assets including quotas, which come under federal jurisdiction to proceed before it had reviewed the two bids.

No deadline

The province has not announced a deadline tocomplete its review.

FPI said in a statement last week it will co-operate with the provincial review.

Don Stewart, the mayor of Harbour Breton, has come out in favour of the Barry Group proposal.

Stewart said a deal with Barry which took over the idled FPI plant in Harbour Breton last fall would benefit his town.

"I think we will almost be guaranteed to have some of [the FPI] quota processed in Harbour Breton," said Stewart, adding it will take as long as 18 months before the plant will be able to process aquaculture-grown fish from a nearby project.

"In order for us to have a plant, we will need traditional fish to be processed."

Meanwhile, sources said a proposal from Nova Scotia processor High Liner Foods is still in the mix. High Liner had placed a bid for FPI's profitable U.S.-based marketing division, for which neither Barry nor Ocean Choice had placed a bid.

Hostile takeover in 2001

FPI's management, led by Nova Scotia seafood processor John Risley, decided last year to divest most of its assets. The company renewed its search for suitors in January.

Risley led a hostile takeover of FPI in 2001. Since then, FPI has had difficult relations with politicians, community leaders and union officialsalike. Among other things, the company has been trying to negotiate concessions from its unionized workforce.

The Fish, Food and Allied Workers union has suspended a vote on a recent conciliation report until the future of the company's plants is clearer.