Putting a fair price on marine leases
A new tool has been developed to allow salmon producers who are looking to lease a site to calculate its potential value.
Following modifications to Chile’s General Fisheries and Aquaculture Law in 2012, it has become commonplace for producers to lease marine licences to each other. However, there has not been an objective means to place a value on each site – something researchers from the Universidad Católica de Temuco have recently decided to rectify.
“Our project aims to determine the variables that explain the economic value of an aquaculture concession and how much each of them influences this valuation," explained Dr Alfonso Mardones, project director.
Speaking at the National Congress of Aquaculture, which was recently held in Viña del Mar, Dr Mardones stated that in order to obtain the weighting of the different variables, they have consulted a panel of experts and developed a database of concessions. Three main variables were identified: oceanographic, environmental/sanitary and productive, which in turn were each linked to a total of 11 secondary variables, which were grouped according to their capacity to undergo modifications.
"The valuation of aquaculture concessions is a new issue and has not been addressed. Due to the scarce knowledge of how the concessions are traded and high speculation regarding their marketing values, the research work proposed a defined methodology of valuation," said the researcher.
Mardones added that: "The degree of certainty that is achieved when valuing a concession, will directly benefit the companies, who can rely on the confidence of financial institutions, should they need to raise funds to take out a new lease.”
