3 companies bidding for plants, quotas: FPI

A key shareholder with Fishery Products International says the company is considering three different proposals to buy its assets in Newfoundland and Labrador.

John Risley, the Nova Scotia-based businessman who engineered a hostile takeover of St. John's-based FPI Limited in 2001, confirmed Friday that FPI now wants to break up the company and get out of the seafood business in Newfoundland.

Risley said three potential suitors have stepped forward with offers. They are Corner Brook businessman Bill Barry's Barry Group Inc., St. John's-based Ocean Choice International Inc., affiliated with the Penney Group; and an offer put together by a group of FPI management employees.

The Canadian Press reported Friday that High Liner FoodsIncorporatedis interested in "certain" assets, but Risley said he was not prepared to comment on it.

Although the Globe and Mail newspaperreported Friday thatFPI had reached a deal to sell assets to Barry, Risley said no deal had been reached. He said the FPI board does not have a preference, but it wants to sell very soon.

"The board is of the view that this has gone on long enough," Risley told CBC News.

"We do have an obligation to the communities in which we do business, and you can't just keep telling people your assets are up for sale without actually doing something."

FPI's groundfish plants in southern Newfoundland have been idle for months because of a dispute between FPI and its unionized workforce. FPI has failedto extractconcessionary wage demands from its plant workers.

Company treated like 'whipping post': Risley

Risley said the company's current leadership "came to Newfoundland with a great deal of ambition" almost six years ago.

However, after forcing a management purge, Risley and his colleagues have received harsh criticism from workers, union officials and politicians of various stripes.

Risley said the company has been treated like "a whipping post" even though his team oversaw investments of more than $100 million in its operations.

Hesaid the company has had to deal with harsh conditions. FPI has cited shortages of raw product, low prices in the international marketplace, unfavourable currency exchange, and fierce competition from cheap labour in China as causes of its woes.

"Obviously we're disappointed We're sad it hasn't worked out as we would have liked it to work out," Risley said.

FPI cannot sell its assets, including its plants and trawlers, without the approval of the Newfoundland and Labrador government.

The provincial FPI Act sets restrictions on how the former Crown corporation, publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange, can operate.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government has said it wants FPI's quotas to be turned over to the province before it does away with the FPI Act.

Not willing to speculate: federal minister

Fisheries quotas, however, are the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn is refusing to speculate on what may happen.

"Once all the cards are on the table, we will see what role we will play," Hearn said Friday in a statement.

Risley would not speculate on what may happen with its lucrative U.S.-based marketing division.