The latest twist is an offer from Peter Pan's president, Rodger May, to acquire certain assets, including the Port Moller processing plant, for $15 million.
For more details about the proposal, plus some interesting remarks about Silver Bay Seafoods, see this 18-page motion filed in King County Superior Court.
22 comments:
Nobody will fish for Rodger May ever.
Strange that he wants Port Moller. There is hardly enough fish on the North side for one processor, let alone competing with Silver Bay.
Motion states Mr. May has $40M in debt on the Peter Pan deal. He's clearly motivated to get out of the mess, and the motion shows he is making enormous efforts to resolve the matter but the receivership isn't working with him.
This is just like the original PAF, when the investors found Deming to replace Onffroy who started PAF, 1898-1966. May has weak management skills, and who ended up with the Deming Brand? Bad management is everywhere in this business, just look at the crying all around Alaska, and how bad it is across the whole industry. You'd think it was 1898 again, when the bankers in Bellingham brought in a manager to build a new plant called Port Moller. Rodger May built nothing, unlike Silver Bay, and, Who's on First?
It's great to see Rodger May is posting on this forum.
Years ago, the management of these companies came up through the ranks of Alaska production people and fishermen turned processor. They weren't salesmen or accountants or lawyers. Different today.
Jeff Welbourn leads Trident and came up processing in Chignik and Naknek. Branson Spiers leads Silver Bay and came up cooking retorts in Larsen Bay. Dave Hambleton leads NPSI and started in Akutan with Trident. Scott Blake was a fisherman turned processor and leads fledgling Copper River.
So, I think your assertion that times have changed is not true. But, I will grant you that OBI leadership sucks and does not know what they are doing. So, yeah, that has changed.
11:49, just restating what is in the motion. May looks like he is being shrewd and could end up with the assets and get rid of most of his debt through the court proceedings. People fishing for him is another story. Delivery options are starting to dwindle statewide. Fishermen might not have another choice. One option is he could post a payment bond in the future to guarantee payment.
That's why May wants Port Moller, no choice for a few gillnet boats in a one-horse town, 1:55. Tough to make it, so Nichiro sold it. Those $10,000 bonds the state requires for processing plants don't go very far nowadays, like they did in 1898. Alaska hasn't modernized anything in this industry, with all those territorial laws on the books. I love that smash and trash 1951 32-foot rule. Still trying to figure out why Peter Pan Dillingham was sold to Japan by the Bristol Bay Native Corp.? All those 3.2-pound sockeyes caught in 2024 aren't worth much with the yen where it's at today! One of these centuries somebody needs to drain that swamp at the BBEDC, who owns part of OBI. They couldn't make it with Peter Pan, so what makes you think they can make it with OBI. At least the only free stuff we used to get at Washington Fish & Oyster was a new hat, when they changed their name to Ocean Beauty. You have to love the free hats at SBS, the most valuable for the shareholders.
Was that because PP was a nonprofit when BBNA owned them 3:07, so they could be like the BBEDC nonprofit that now has OBI, along with Icicle, and a few fish farms? Nichiro reported numerous years of losses which likely explains why they sold it, it made no profit. Silver Bay seems to be a real problem today, as each plant stands alone, not like the other older local business model, where Bristol Bay subsequently subsidized the other loss leaders in this industry. Even Jimmy Pattison figured that one out, buying up almost everything for sale lately in Bristol Bay. You have to just love that old used car salesman, who dropped out of college, just in time!
If May were to acquire Moller at a low price, stripping the equipment for resale would be an option. Remember, most of it is only a few years old, including the power generation. If that were the case, Moller would be done.
What May wants has little to do with ongoing fish processing. Port Moller, you say? Great, if there was twice as much fish and no Silver Bay. If he really wanted into the processing business, he would look at King Cove and Dillingham.
Like Moller, the Ballard warehouse has value not associated with processing. Real estate. Same with inventories and fish quotas that can be sold.
Everyone keeps saying SBS is in real trouble (8:52) ignoring the facts of the other processors:
NPSI has a collection of old tired plants in the bay (PPT, Red Salmon, Leader Creek, AGS). The deferred maintenance is now cost-prohibitive. Hambleton knows it and will soon exit.
OBI is bouncing checks in the bay and has even older and deteriorating plants. Egegik, Wood River and Nakenk with poor senior management won't last another year under current models.
Blakey has a good idea but can't execute.
Trident has lost interest as they look to grow by shrinkage.
So, SBS might be in a precarious situation as they look to grab control of the industry, but the industry needs them to succeed.
@ 8:52 p.m., just providing some additional clarification. BBNA, Bristol Bay Native Association, is yet another Bristol Bay organization. BBNA is a nonprofit supported by the tribes of Bristol Bay to serve as a unified voice to provide social, economic, cultural and educational opportunities and initiatives to benefit the tribes and the Native people of Bristol Bay.
SBS may need to scramble if this pink season is as poor as it looks at this early date. But they have good people and some, not all, top-notch plants. They will make it.
OBI is a debacle. They would sell, but who would buy. They eventually die off and maybe someone picks off a plant or two.
Trident had it all. But lack of management top to bottom has sent them downhill.
NPSI has a good top Alaska man. The plants are old and need to be consolidated in Bristol Bay.
Outside of pollock in the Bering Sea, there is really only room for two processors in some areas, and three in others. In the Peninsula, only one. My money is on SBS and NPSI. Trident maybe, but just maybe as the third.
All the above is the problem with the fishing industry in Alaska, just noise and posturing. Can we get back to having some smiths run the show? Can we get back to putting up quality seafood? We are where we are because we put up so much garbage...volume, volume, volume...yawn!!!! It's all laughable!!! R. May is laughable...and so is everyone else that's getting sucked into it. Have quality...will travel!!!
They don't pay anything for quality. Under 5-pound dressed troll-caught coho are $1 per pound.
I miss BobbyT posting here...
Gotta tell you, 9:22. PPSF had the best quality PBO sockeye fillets out of all three in the Peninsula. I'm talking S Pen. No one can put up a good quality in BB. Impossible to turn garbage into quality.
And it's also impossible to turn ignorance into a quality product, 12:51. Maybe the business model of those three major canners should be replaced one of these centuries, like their 1951 32-foot sailboat regulation, just like their 1921 powerboat regulation that banned engines so they could make sure that no modern type of business model would show up and compete. When you deckloaded a bunch of garbage onto a sailboat, it really didn't matter when you hid the damage in a can, tossed into the retort. Now we have another one of those government-sponsored task forces, just like from back in the '70s, '80s and '90s. Last week, one of this year's hottest IPO offerings was Lineage, the old Seattle cold storage outfit that now is nationwide and modernizing an industry. Remember the 5-cent pinks, after Ketchikan produced that botulism pink pack in the can, using a labeling machine built in 1906? And you think BB is the only place that produces garbage? The whole state produces it, running on an antiquated business model from a third-world society.
2:45 is absolutely correct. Best way to handle salmon is by trapping, then transporting live to the plant. That's what they do in Russia. Next best is hook-and-line, if the troller handles properly after catching. Hook-and-line is also best for cod, especially the catcher-processors that bring it aboard, bleed it, and freeze 30 minutes later. But truth is that mandating that catch method would put the last of the buffalo hunters, and their processors, out of business.
4:50, we can do better than that, Carlisle Packing Co. trap at Village Point, needed to trap tender, where those Fraser River sockeye swam straight up the can line? Carlisle didn't even have to run any trap tenders. When the predecessor of Peter Pan, PAF, bought the Alsop Trap for $95,000, everyone thought they were nuts in 1922, and they paid it off the first year with lots left over. Most fish traps were failures, and the real estate value of the successful models were worth a fortune. When Alaska decided to ban traps, Nick Bez had a little meeting with Jay Hammond pleading with him to phase out the traps slowly. PAF sold out in 1966, and became Peter Pan. They were really pissed off when the feds banned all fish traps and setnets in Bristol Bay back in the '20s. So then PAF got engines banned and the sailboat rule passed so you couldn't drive your fish to another packer. Statehood killed PAF, and it ain't too late to ban setnets again, just like in Cook Inlet and Southeast.
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