Royal Star Fish Plant benefiting from selling $3M in shares
Tignish company wants permission to sell more shares
The Royal Star Fish Plant raised nearly $3 million by selling shares to the public, helping the plant upgrade its facilities, the manager said Thursday.
Francis Morrissey says the community investment program let the plant build an addition and a freezer, without borrowing the money. The province let the Tignish, P.E.I., company sell shares earlier this year, which it did under a subsidiary company called Royal Investment Cooperative.
It's a way for people to invest in P.E.I. companies and keep the money in P.E.I.- Francis Morrisey
It also created more storage for live lobsters, so the plant didn't impose quotas on fishermen this spring, as many other lobster processors did.
It can now hold more than 317,000 kilograms of live lobster.
The plant also hired more workers.
Morrissey said many investors are local fisherman and so they benefit directly.
The shares sold out and Royal Star wants to offer more. “It's a way for people to invest in P.E.I. companies and keep the money in P.E.I.,” he said.
The company has asked the province for permission to sell more shares and expects a response within a few months.
Kenneth LeClair, a company director and fisherman himself, agreed.
“People were really happy because they got that tax money back right away. They don't have to wait over a year, they got it back that same year, and that made people real happy. [They were] calling from all over the island, wanting to invest,” he said.
The plant has been in Tignish for ninety years. Those involved in this latest project say it proves the community is behind the plant.