Situation

United State Seafoods (“USS”) has historically operated, in addition to its Amendment 80 fishing business, a large shipyard and loading facility on Lake Union, where it also has its headquarters. The shipyard and moorage facilities supported its large fleet, as well as some third-party customers. As USS has optimized its fleet to fit its owned whitefish quota in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, its needs for moorage and repair and maintenance facilities became less than the capacity of its Lake Union facility.

 

Role

Zachary Scott worked with USS to evaluate different alternatives to free up locked capital while still retaining use of the strategic facility and how to redeploy the capital to provide liquidity to its core fishing operations.

 

Result

The Lake Union facility was sold to Coastal Villages Region Fund (“CVRF”) with a leaseback of part of the facility and headquarters offices. CVRF, which operates vessels serving the crab and pollock fisheries in Alaska, will use a portion of the facilities to support its fleet.  USS used the proceeds to realign its core fishing operation balance sheet to give it more flexibility to continue optimizing its operations.