Incitec Pivot has not exactly been a stellar success on...

Incitec Pivot has not exactly been a stellar success on shareholder creation metrics. They definitely expanded, but not sure how much shareholders benefited from it. As far as I understand, he was involved in Incitec's expansion from fertilizers into explosives - doubt he is going to help the ESG cause on salmon farming in Tassie. Clearly, expansion and going into new areas will be his focus - and potentially networking and joint partnership development. I'd be open to other's thoughts on the matter.


Meanwhile Bug1, in terms of growth in other species, I would be thinking there are plenty of opportunities. From Mark Ryan's presentations, he sees it as part of a natural progression but not necessarily in Tasmania - he wants Tassal to become a pan-Australia aquaculture company. Therefore I would not be limiting myself to the Tasmanian government's aquaculture development strategy, but rather thinking more broadly. Moreover, the synergies are perhaps as large in the marketing and distribution, as they could be in the growing. So Tropico and Tassal have synergies in the operational sense, but makes sense within a company still.

But what's next? My guess has been fin-fish in terms of barramundi or similar in NT, or taking over the yellowtail kingfish operations from CSS in South Australia. Seaweed (if they can get into Asparagospsis) could be interesting too, and this is something they have mentioned but with no detail. Considering the time lag to develop these things, and the fact that prawns are likely to mature around 2030, now is actually a really important time to be thinking and planning for the 3rd wave of the aquaculture development strategy. Asparagospis for instance may take until 2030 to properly start up, and would mature around 2040 according to the Seaweed Industry Blueprint.