Jobs safeguarded at Lighthouse Caledonia

As For Argyll reported a few days ago after the Lighthouse Caledonia EGM on 3rd March, that meeting agreed and approved all of the proposals put forward to safeguard the company’s stabilisation.

Some of the media have tried to rain on the parade of the survival of a major Argyll and Scottish employer which had been under threat. The complaint is that that profits are going to Norway. Do they complain about Iberdrola, Spanish owner of Scottish Power? And do they compain about Ferrovial, Spanish owner of BAA, operator of Edinburgh and Glasgow airports – and still, without penalty, defying the Competition Commission’s order to sell one of the two.

The problem with what is called ‘the liberalisation of the market’ is that anyone anywhere can own pretty well anything in the UK. The downside is that we are potentially and constantly prey to interests other than our own – which is of particular concern in the area of utilities. The positive side of the coin is that the sort of investment Britain lost the stomach for a long time ago will be made by external business interests in return for what profits they can make.

And a key point of great current significance is that the jobs and the salaries stay in Argyll and elsewhere in Scotland.

Jim Mather, Argyll’s  MSP and Enterprise Minister, has put the matter in perspective in his welcoming of  the news that an inward investment deal worth £17m has made the future of Lighthouse Caledonia – the country’s third largest salmon producer -  much brighter and means that more than 200 jobs will be secure. He says: ‘I am very pleased to learn that after restructuring and a share issue worth around £17m that the future of lighthouse Caledonian appears secure.

‘Last year Lighthouse Caledonian suffered a serious shortfall in liquidity and there were fears that the company might have to go into receivership.

‘Northern Link, a global private equity investor in aquaculture and marine related companies, with interests around the world including Norway, Peru and Russia, has taken a controlling interest in Lighthouse Caledonia ASA. Northern Link will work closely with the present company management and the many local  communities where business is based to sustain and support the existing structure of the company and safeguard the remaining workforce which exceeds 200.

‘The company has its headquarters in Paisley, its processing plant at Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne, and fish farming operations at more than 40 sites spread across the West Coast of Scotland and in the Western Isles.

‘The company provides important employment at many locations where work is scarce and where job losses would have had a severely disproportionate effect. I am delighted to learn of the a successful turnaround and hope and trust that the company will known prosper’.