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Formerly known as Raisioaqua, now Alltech Fennoaqua, assists its fish farming clients in sustainably and economically producing healthy food for consumers. At the heart of their operation is a strong specialization in feeding suitable for northern conditions, along with innovative and ecological top-quality feeds.

Alltech Fennoaqua was formed when Finnforel, a Finnish company specializing in fish recirculating aquaculture systems and circular economy, acquired Raisio Oyj’s fish feed production business, Raisioaqua, together with the globally operating Alltech and Heino Group. The debt-free purchase price was seven million euros, and the corporate arrangement was executed as a stock transaction.

Aamu Partners participated in the corporate arrangement, conducting a financial due diligence review at the buyer’s request and helping to set up the new company’s business and financial management structures. Aamu has experience in developing business and data-driven management processes for dozens of companies, and more broadly in supporting the achievement of business goals.

“Aamu was an important support in establishing the financial function as Raisioaqua transitioned to the independent company Alltech Fennoaqua.”

Tomi Kantola, CEO, Alltech Fennoaqua.

A New Company, New Structures

Raisioaqua was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raisio Oyj, and many of Raisioaqua’s internal functions were purchased as group services from the parent company.
“After the acquisition, the functions previously produced as group services remained with the Raisio group, and our organization didn’t even have people to handle, for example, financial management!” – says CEO Kantola.

Aamu helped particularly in setting up and implementing the company’s financial structures. This included mapping the needs of the financial function, checking key indicators, and searching for and partly instructing suitable systems and partners. Aamu’s experts and Alltech Fennoaqua also exchanged ideas about the future management team’s structure and operations.

“It’s impressive how Aamu’s experts built a solid foundation for the new company’s financial function almost from scratch!” – Kantola explains.

Initially, Aamu’s experts outlined the company’s business cause-and-effect relationships using the Clarity method into a logic tree and identified the company’s key metrics and business drivers. It was important to get an overall picture of what should be managed in the company so that the financial function could support monitoring key metrics and data-driven management.

“Rarely enough, Aamu’s experts immediately grasped how our business operates practically and what foundation was needed to establish the financial function.”

Experienced and External Party Assisting

At the core of Aamu’s services is offering an external and independent expert perspective on business. This was also beneficial to Alltech Fennoaqua, as Kantola shares:
“For once, someone looks at this operation from the outside and can identify what could be done better. They share the best practices based on experience: how to build and effectively manage the financial function based on accurate numerical information.”

Aamu’s expert team has a broad educational background and over 40,000 hours of experience in various and exceptional business situations with SMEs. A crucial aspect of Aamu’s operation is the effectiveness of the actions: ensuring that the service is not just based on discussion, but concrete next steps are identified during the collaboration to achieve the goals.

“Sometimes, just the word ‘consultant’ can cause a total backlash. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with Aamu. Aamu’s experts didn’t just wave their hands; they concretely did things. Now our financial function operates on the foundation created by Aamu, and this solid basis gives our new financial person a strong ground to build new, fine-tune processes, and reporting.” – Kantola on Aamu’s methods.

ESG Metrics

In addition to key business metrics, the company wants to implement ESG metrics. The acronym ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance, often referring to a company’s responsibility actions and reporting. How a company performs concerning environmental, social, and governance aspects. The EU directive corporate sustainability reporting directive obliges large companies to do sustainability reporting, but for many companies, ESG reporting can also be a matter of principle and a competitive advantage.
“Our goal is to develop a new generation of fish feeds that rely on a circular economy model. Already, Finnforel’s by-products can produce new ecological raw materials for fish feed, either directly or indirectly, at the heart of the bio- and circular economy.” -Finnforel’s technology director Tommi Mäkinen says.

Aamu provided Alltech Fennoaqua with recommendations for ESG reporting and compiled guidance for the management team, which is a good basis for further development of the metric system. The essential idea in the recommendations was that, when implemented correctly, considering ESG aspects can provide a competitive advantage compared to other industry players, thereby also helping to achieve business goals. In some contexts, such as waste reduction, financial metrics also improve in direct correlation with ESG metrics.

Final Summary

Alltech Fennoaqua was born through a corporate arrangement when an investor consortium acquired Raisio Oyj’s fish feed production business Raisioaqua. Aamu Partners was involved in the corporate arrangement, conducting a financial due diligence review and assisting in setting up the new company’s financial function from scratch. The basic building blocks for ESG monitoring were also created for further development. If you need support in your SME’s operations, contact Aamu Partners.