Pacific Star sold to the highest bidder
Pacific Star is currently considered a mid-size salmon company, producing 25 thousand tons annually. The company started however as one of the first fishmeal plants to emerge from the growth of the salmon industry, and the need to properly manage the organic waste generated from the processing plants. Industrial engineer Pedro Hurtado Vicuña started the company in 1985 together with Martín Rozas. Pedro is the youngest of the four Hurtado Vicuña brothers, who are now selling some of their businesses to embark together on a new urbanization project near Santiago. Vicuña has invested heavily in Pacific Star these past months to boost its market value, such as expanding the production capacity of its fish oil and fishmeal processing plant near Puerto Montt; and most all of the big players were interested in buying: Empresas AquaChile S.A., Multiexport Foods, Marine Harvest, and Mainstream. According to the Mercurio however, it was Andrés Navarro, CEO of Sonda, Chile’s leading software and IT company who placed the highest bid. The final sale price has not yet been announced, and the bank BCI (Banco Credito e Inversiones) is handling the financial aspect of the transition. This is not Navarro’s first jump into the aquaculture sector. Last year he formed a business together with Victor Hugo Puchi, CEO and principal owner of Empresas AquaChile S.A., for the production and processing of mussels.
