JONESPORT, Maine — The Kingfish Company N.V., parent company of Kingfish Maine, said Friday it raised less than 60% of the money it hoped to secure in a share offering on the Euronext market.
In the offering documents, the company also said it will not proceed with its proposed aquaculture project in Jonesport until legal, commercial and financing conditions are more favorable, with no work expected for at least another year.
Kingfish sold fewer than 45 million of the nearly 75 million shares offered in what is described as a subsequent share offering to support the company’s overall financial position and operations. The shares were sold at nearly 90% below last year’s price.
The company’s stock peaked in January 2021 and has since declined steadily.
Last month, the company announced a two‑week subscription period from Aug. 20 to Sept. 3, hoping to raise about $4.8 million in U.S. dollars. It raised $2.8 million.
The company released information throughout the day Friday on who bought the shares, but those sales are not expected to substantially dilute the 31.5% majority stake held by Eyrir Blue Farms, an Icelandic private equity firm owned by Árni Thordarson.
Thordarson is best known globally for his role at JBT Morel, a company that automates food production plants.
According to the prospectus that was circulated to potential investors last month, the company “will not initiate construction of the Maine facility until favourable legal, commercial, economic, and financing conditions are in place.”
It also said more broadly that the company “has not planned any material investments in the following 12 months after the date of this Prospectus.”
The prospectus states that the Kingfish Company N.V. has all federal, state and municipal regulatory permits in place for Kingfish Maine, but also acknowledges that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has not yet decided to renew the discharge permit.
The state DEP is not expected to review the Kingfish application for renewal until early 2027.
Separately, the DEP is reviewing recently approved changes to town ordinances that could restart the clock for Kingfish if the company decides to revisit the project, giving it 30 months to demonstrate a substantial construction start. The prior ordinance allowed 24 months, but voters overwhelmingly amended it in July.
The amended ordinance lowers the threshold for what constitutes a “substantial start” and, separately, authorizes the Planning Board to approve revisions without a full site plan review.
The Maine DEP has until mid‑September to determine whether Jonesport voters can offer these concessions to Kingfish.
Kingfish Maine first proposed building the recirculating aquaculture system in November 2019. The plant was expected to produce about 8,500 metric tons of yellowtail kingfish, a species that prefers warm water.
Environmental concerns sparked immediate opposition, and legal challenges stalled the project for years. But in April 2025, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court cleared Kingfish Maine to proceed, affirming a lower court decision that upheld the state DEP permit.
Kingfish is a land‑based aquaculture company that bought about 94 acres at 9 Dun Garvin Road in Jonesport for $1.25 million in late 2021. It proposed building a $110 million, 50,000‑square‑foot facility on 22 acres, using recirculating aquaculture systems that would draw and strain 28 million gallons of seawater from Chandler Bay each day.
Vincent Erenst, The Kingfish Company CEO, wrote in an email to Monitor Local late Friday that the company will continue to advance “necessary regulatory and development work in Maine” as it awaits more “favorable legal, commercial, economic and financing conditions” in Jonesport.
The company’s focus right now is its underlying business, and what Erenst called “continual updates to our biological and operational performance, increasing production efficiency and building a sustainable path toward profitability.”
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.