It will list on the market at 8am on April 4. The floating will give the seaweed additive producer a market capitalization of £20.1m (US$26.02m).
AIM is the London Stock Exchange’s market for small and medium-sized companies.
OHT maintains it is one of the only globally commercially viable seaweed feed ingredient businesses in a global market worth US$40bn, with it growing at around 6% per annum.
The supplier generated total revenue of €3m (US$3.26m) and product revenue of €2.51m in FY22, noting a three-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in product revenue of 46%. It reported further revenue growth in the first two months of the current year and expects to deliver substantial growth in 2023.
Goals
Its ambition is to become the largest supplier of proprietary blended seaweed ingredients to the global animal feed industry.
The Theale, UK headquartered company, which has 40 employees, has been investing significantly in research trials with a commercial focus to generate further data, supporting that goal of further feed market penetration.
It has been building its knowledge over the past 10 years on the specific benefits its products, derived from green, brown, and red seaweeds, can generate across multiple animal species.
Research trials
We spoke to OHT CEO, Mark Williams, last year and heard about that trial work and the next phase of the company’s commercial journey.
He joined the company in February 2022. Prior to that, he was CFO of Insect Technology Group, the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) derived protein producer.
OHT’s blends are applicable across species. “Our four biggest customers are in poultry, then swine, followed by bovine and, finally, aqua. So that's representative of what our customer base is like,” said the CEO.
The prebiotic effect and the bio compounds in the seaweed blends have a consistent effect across species, reported Williams, but he outlined how OHT has been spending a lot on research to demonstrate the specific performance benefits of its products for broilers, piglets, dairy cows, and farmed fish.
R&D and production footprint
The company still has R&D facilities in Galway, in the west of Ireland, where its head office was located originally. It also has a production facility in Vietnam, near Ho Chi Minh City, with has seen recent capacity expansion.
“Seaweed is sourced globally. I’d say about three-quarters comes from Southeast Asia. But the brown seaweeds come from the North Atlantic. It is all shipped to our site in Vietnam.
“The seaweed supply chain is key. Sourcing seaweed is not straightforward as it is wild, and most of it is sourced from areas with poor infrastructure and low economic development. We have helped establish a supply chain, in some countries directly with local fishermen and, in other markets, with brokers.”
