A letter penned by 92 fishermen based in and around Port Moller, Alaska, U.S.A., has compelled Rodger May to withdraw his bid for assets – including a Port Moller processing facility – owned by Peter Pan Seafoods, which is now in receivership.
May, who purchased Peter Pan along with McKinley Capital in 2021, had offered USD 15 million (EUR 13.8 million) for Peter Pan’s warehouse in Seattle, Washington; its processing facility in Port Moller, Alaska; its King Cove, Alaska fuel business; and other assets. But he withdrew his bid 8 August after the letter became public.
“May and co-owners have done irreparable harm to the many people and their families that make their living from the commercial fisheries on the Alaska Peninsula,” the letter said. “There are still many fishermen that have not been paid for fish they delivered as well as vendors and tenders not being paid for goods and services provided. The trust with Mr. May and his businesses as a viable partner, which the commercial fishing community needs, has been permanently broken.”
Peter Pan’s closure of its King Cove plant in January 2024, combined with a lease-to-sell deal that has transferred control of its Port Moller facility to Silver Bay Seafoods, has left it with no remaining operational physical plant in Alaska. Despite suffering hardships as a result, the area’s fishermen refuse to continue working with Peter Pan, according to the letter.
“The impact to the King Cove community is tremendous, with loss of tax revenues and jobs,” the letter said. “Without fish being processed in Port Moller, the costs to tender fish large distances increase and is not as viable during tough market conditions that the industry is currently withstanding. The future viability of Port Moller is of vital importance to the region and needs a company that is healthy to be the lead processor in the area and Mr. May and his business associates are not the future.”
All signors of the letter vowed to not deliver fish or enter into any business relationship with May, citing numerous liens recently filed by its contracted fishermen and other partners, after coping with a previous set of claims in 2023.
“His past actions of not paying fishermen for the fish delivered to his company as well as not paying tender owners and operators and many vendors has broken the trust forever in working with him,” the letter said.
In his court filing, May’s attorney did not address the reason for the withdrawal of May’s bid to buy the Peter Pan assets. But commercial fisherman Patrick Springer, who has fished for Peter Pan since its beginning in Alaska and who organized the letter-writing effort, told SeafoodSource he considered the campaign – which was explicitly aimed at invalidating May’s bid for the processing plants – a success.
“The goal of it was for the receivers, or whoever the power is making these decisions, to see the overriding sentiment here is that having Rodger May involved isn't going to work,” Springer said. “Our goal was to get Rodger to back off, and to get the receivership to understand that it’s futile for him to be making this bid. The letter shows he has no fleet and that nobody is going to sell him any fish. So why even bother?”
Springer said he had nothing personal against May, and that he had remained in business with Peter Pan “until the very bitter end” out of loyalty to his longtime buyer.
“Rodger kept saying we would be taken care of, and I stuck with him because I’m a very loyal guy,” Springer said. “Unfortunately, he failed. Whatever it was that caused it, it didn’t work, and I lost my healthcare and my startup costs as a result. I took a hit by being loyal to Rodger May for as long as I did, and there weren’t many of us that did. But the bottom line is now that I need Port Moller to stay open or I’ll go bankrupt, and Silver Bay is the only viable option now to do it.”
Springer credited Silver Bay with …
