Herald Staff
ARLINGTON — Two Seattle investors have paid $5.15 million to buy the assets of an Arlington-based caviar business.
Joe Brotherton and Dan Nelson confirmed Thursday that their company, Round Gold LLC, has taken over Cossack Caviar Inc., which filed in April for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The caviar business’s major assets include a new 60,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Arlington and a roe-processing barge.
Right now, the caviar business employs about nine people, but more than 100 typically work for the business during the summer and fall harvesting seasons, according to the Arlington office.
Brotherton and Nelson formed Round Gold earlier this year for the specific purpose of taking over Cossack Caviar.
"Our roe processing and sales plan is simple. We intend to acquire as many of the highest quality eggs available in Alaska, Canada and the Northwest and produce the highest quality salmon caviar for sales in the U.S., Europe and Japan," Brotherton said in a statement about the acquisition.
In addition to caviar, the new business, which will use the Round Gold name, will use the barge to produce hydrolysate, a high-protein product used for animal feed and fertilizer. It is made out of the parts of the fish that are unsuitable for human consumption.
"The production of hydrolysate is a relatively new process in which the predecessor company invested many of millions of dollars. Joe and I believe that this will ultimately be a major part of this enterprise," Brotherton added.
Cossack Caviar was founded in 1970 by previous owner Garry Shaw, who spent five years before that managing fish and roe-processing operations in southern Alaska.
In addition producing salmon caviar, Cossack ventured into the sports bait business as a means of selling rejected salmon eggs. After moving from Seattle to Arlington in 1990, the business began to divest from the bait business.
According to documents filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Seattle, Cossack Caviar reported assets of $8.4 million and liabilities of more than $14 million when it filed for Chapter 11.
Both of Round Gold’s owners already have business interests in Alaska. Brotherton is a lawyer and an accountant with interests in real estate, and operates businesses throughout the United States, especially in Alaska, Washington and Arizona.
Nelson is a Kirkland-based investor and businessman. In addition to his real estate investments, he owns and operates Alaska Steel, an Anchorage-based steel service center.
In 2000, the two joined forces to purchase the Sweetlix cattle feeding operation of P.M.Ag. They operate that business under the name Sweetlix LLC, with its headquarters in Salt Lake City.
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