ScaleAQ acquires Skala Maskon

February 2023 — TINE SA, one of Norway’s largest food companies, and Nortura SA, a large food producer, have sold Maskon AS to ScaleAQ.

Maskon is a global market leader in the production and sale of fully automatic vaccination machines. The company sold its first roe-sorting machine in 2006, and its first automatic vaccination machine to Salmar in 2011. Maskon is part of the Skala Group, owned by Nortura and TINE.

ScaleAQ is an international company in aquaculture that supplies innovation, technology and equipment to customers globally. The company’s 900 competent and innovative employees ensure a local presence along the entire coast of Norway, and from its offices in Scotland, Iceland, Canada, Tasmania, Chile, Poland and Vietnam. ScaleAQ’s vision is to create the aquaculture of the future by establishing, optimizing and upgrading the industry. ScaleAQ has made sustainability a prerequisite in all parts of its business and, through an increased focus on biology, the company is ensuring that technology development takes place based on biology and the environment. ScaleAQ is owned by Kverva AS.

TINE is Norway’s largest producer, distributor and exporter of dairy products, with 11,400 members (owners) and 9,000 cooperative farms. TINE promotes the use of clean and natural raw materials to produce tasty and healthy food, and it aims to do this through close interaction between nature, agriculture, consumers and trade. the group has Norwegian and foreign fully and partly owned subsidiaries. Most of TINE’s international activity is in the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Sweden and the UK.

Nortura is a cooperative owned by 17,100 Norwegian farmers and is one of the largest food producers in the country. The group has 31 production units and approximately 4,800 employees. The company’s facilities receive 350,000 tons of meat and eggs every year, and the major production groups are beef, pork, chicken, eggs, turkey, mutton, lamb and goat.

Our role in the transaction

Oaklins’ team in Norway served as the exclusive financial advisor to the shareholders of Maskon AS in this transaction.