Global seafood giant Cooke Inc. announced a purchase agreement to acquire Peru-based Corporación Pesquera Inca SAC (Copeinca), one of the world’s largest fishmeal and fish oil producers and exporters.

The acquisition will give the Saint John, N.B.-based seafood company access to 200,000 tonnes of fishmeal and 23,000 tonnes of fish oil annually. Copeinca has Peru’s largest anchovy quota and is also its largest fishing company, with 2,770 employees, 45 vessels and eight processing plants.

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Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but it’s speculated that the deal may be worth $1 billion.

Cooke is the world’s largest family-owned seafood company and employs 13,000 people. Leading up to the deal, the company had made 15 acquisitions with a combined value of $2.5 billion and has become a global company with operations in 14 countries.

Its biggest acquisition came in in November 2022 after buying the Tassal Group Ltd. in Australia for more than $1 billion.

Cooke chief executive Glenn Cooke said the company is excited to bring Copeinca aboard.

“We believe Copeinca will be a major contributor in furthering Cooke’s growth as a leader strengthening global food security,” he said in a release.

Cooke entered the marine ingredients sector in 2017 with its acquisition of Omega Protein Corp., a Virginia-based nutritional product company and an integrated provider of specialty oils and specialty protein products.

In February, Cooke announced that its subsidiary Bioriginal Food & Science Corp. had acquired Saskatoon-based POS Biosciences Corp. from Canopy Growth Corp. The deal gave Cooke access to POS’s state-of-the-art oil processing, concentration and molecular distillation facility designed to create value-added oils and proteins.

A month later, Cooke announced that Bioriginal had developed a sustainable line of omega-3 fish, algal, and plant-based oils with technology from POS.

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Cooke’s latest acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in November.

• Email: arankin@postmedia.com

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