Copeinca: a Peruvian fishmeal maker taken over, bankrupted, and rebuilt — 1994 to Cooke

Copeinca was founded in July 1994 by the Dyer family, which bought its first fishmeal plant at Bayóvar (Piura) the same year, then consolidated plants, vessels and anchoveta quotas along Peru's coast. The business spans the full anchoveta value chain — fishing, fishmeal, fish oil — with 99%+ of output exported. In January 2007 Copeinca ASA listed on the Oslo stock exchange, giving a Peruvian family firm access to Nordic fisheries capital.

The turning point was leverage: in 2013, Singapore-listed China Fishery Group launched a voluntary offer that became a compulsory one at NOK 68.17/share (a 17.5% premium to the 21 June close), and Copeinca delisted in March 2014 after CFG acquired the remaining shares. When the Pacific Andes/CFG empire hit its debt crisis in 2015-16 — fishmeal exports plunged and creditors won court approval to take over the Peruvian assets in November 2016 — Copeinca passed into creditor hands: a cautionary end for the leveraged cross-continent play.

Salvage came with new, longer-term capital: on 7 November 2024 Cooke Inc. signed a binding SPA and completed the acquisition on 26 November 2024 (terms confidential). Copeinca is now Peru's largest fishing company — 2,770 employees, 45 vessels, 8 plants, the country's largest anchoveta quota (15.9%) handling ~21% of national landings, producing ~200,000 tonnes of fishmeal and 23,000 tonnes of fish oil a year.

Peru's largest fishing company by 2024: 2,770 employees, 45 vessels, 8 plants and a 15.9% anchoveta quota handling ~21% of national catch.

A quota-based, El Niño-driven commodity consolidates or dies: each owner — Dyer (1994-2007), CFG (2013-14), Cooke (2024) — bought scale in plants and quotas; leverage between was the lesson.

Debt is the recurring killer: CFG's 2016 collapse handed the asset to creditors, while Cooke's long-horizon capital could absorb El Niño cycles — ownership, not fishing skill, decided the outcome.

In quota industries the asset is the right to fish: consolidation is a bet on capital — family build, leveraged buy, patient owner. The cycle, not the catch, picks who owns it.

Under Cooke (since Nov 2024), Copeinca anchors one of Peru's two largest anchoveta quotas, and the broader Cooke seafood network now spans shellfish, salmon and fishmeal across the Americas and Europe. The 2016-2024 interregnum — creditor control after the CFG collapse — left the business leaner; the new owner reports 45 vessels, 8 plants and 2,770 staff as the current state. The story's arc — family → Oslo → Singapore leverage → creditors → Canadian private capital — reads as a who's-who of how ownership structures trade the same fishery over three decades.