Eggert Þór Kristófersson, CEO of salmon farming company First Water, has had a long and successful career in managing and as the CEO of a registered company. In a conversation with ViðskiptaMogginn, he discusses his time at Íslandsbanki, N1 and Festi, and how he ended up as CEO of First Water, the company’s development, and other issues.
“There were only two options—either seek a comparable position or try something completely different,” says Eggert Þór Kristófersson, CEO of salmon farming company First Water, in a conversation with ViðskiptaMogginn. He is leading the development of a company, which next year, will be one of the largest salmon farming companies in the world.
Eggert was raised in Ólafsvík on Snæfellsnes peninsula but moved to Reykjavík as a young man to enroll to junior college. Upon graduation, he studied business at the auditing division of the University of Iceland. Eggert’s plan was to become an auditor. He worked as such for about half a year but discovered that it didn’t suit him and became a banker instead, in 1995. Eggert is married to Ágústa Dröfn Kristleifsdóttir and they have four children and three grandchildren.
He worked at Íslandsbanki, which later was rebranded as Glitnir, continuously until the autumn of 2008.
“Then the Icelandic banking system went under and Geir Haarde [Prime Minister at the time] gave the famous ‘God bless Iceland’ speech. So, I started working as a consultant, which at that time was a fancy name for an unemployed banker,” jokes Eggert.
In the following years, Eggert worked closely with his friend and colleague Bjarni Ármannsson on reorganizing a few companies on behalf of bondholders. Among them was fuel company N1.
“We began reorganizing N1 in 2010 and completed the task in the summer of 2011. Subsequently, I was offered the position of CFO, which I served until February 2015 when I took over as CEO of N1,” recounts Eggert.
N1 acquired the old Festi in 2018, which owned Bakki warehouse, ELKO and Krónan among other assets, and following the acquisition the name of the parent company was changed to Festi.
“I worked there until June 8, 2022, when I was terminated. A few days after the termination, the largest shareholders of First Water contacted me and asked if I would like to join land-based aquaculture. I said, ‘absolutely not!”
Eggert adds that shortly afterwards he traveled with his family to the UK to the Women’s Euro to watch his daughter-in-law, Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir, captain of the Icelandic team, play.
“When I returned from that trip, I agreed to take on the position as CEO of First Water and lead the company’s development. My wife has been my rock and supported me through all my endeavors, and I will eternally be grateful to her for that,” declares Eggert.
Large and Valuable Project
When asked what it’s like to be CEO of First Water, Eggert says it felt like starting school again at 50, as he had little knowledge of the salmon farming industry before agreeing to the position.
“I didn’t know anything about salmon farming and have been learning new things every day since. One might say that the job has been way to rediscover myself,” he states.
When asked whether there was anything in particular that fascinated him about the salmon farming industry, Eggert mentions that after having served for a long time as a manager in the economic life and CEO at a registered company—which ended abruptly—there were only two options available.
“There were only two options—either seek a comparable position or try something completely different. I worked with brilliant people at N1/Festi, for whom I cared deeply, and I find it very important to work good people whose company I enjoy. On the board of N1, I worked with Jón Sigurðsson, CEO of Stoðir, which is the largest shareholder in First Water. That had a lot to do with me deciding to join the company, to work with people I knew from my previous job, in spite of entering a new field of employment,” explains Eggert.
He says that after a few conversations with the largest shareholder, he was quick to get a grip of the big picture. What they envisioned was one of the largest private investments in the history of Iceland and I realized that the project could become extremely valuable.
When asked about the details of the operation, Eggert responds that the company runs a hatchery in Hveragerði and that grow-out production takes place in tanks on Laxabraut in Þorlákshöfn.
“It goes like this: We buy the salmon roes from Benchmark Genetics in Vogar and from there they are transported to the company’s hatchery, Öxnalækur, just outside Hveragerði. The temperature in Öxnalækur is optimal for breeding salmon smolts. It takes about 10 months to from hatching in freshwater until the smolts have reached 80 g. Then, they are transferred to Þorlákshöfn where they are placed in geothermal seawater, which we pump up through the lava,” explains Eggert.
He adds that salmon farming takes a lot of patience as the process from roe to market is two years.
When asked why it was decided to operate the land-based salmon farm in Ölfus region, Eggert responds that it’s due to the area’s unique conditions. He says that they didn’t have to drill far beneath the lava in Þorlákshöfn to get to clear geothermal seawater, which suits salmon farming particularly well.
“Salmon farming is, to a large extent, dependent on access to sea. The area around Þorlákshöfn also has the great advantage that there is constant inflow of sea from the Atlantic Ocean which is naturally filtered through the lava. The only thing we have to do is to pump it up, and the water is perfectly clear by nature,” he explains.
He states that the water quality of the geothermal seawater is exceptional, which is of utmost importance in aquaculture.
“Our salmon lives in geothermal seawater of such high quality that we changed the company’s name from Landeldi hf. to First Water, which is a reference to that,” he says.
The first salmon was harvested in May last year and according to Eggert, the company has harvested more than 1,000 tons to date. Almost every week, 25 tons are harvested. He claims that the quality of the products is constantly increasing and that 95% of the salmon which the company has sold on the market has been certified to be of top quality.
“We are also very content that less than a 5% of the production is wasted during the farming process,” says Eggert.
When asked, he says that so far, no unfortunate incidents have occurred, such as infections or diseases.
The company currently employs 68 people and according to plans, more than 300 people will work for the company in 2029.
Aiming for 50 Thousand Tons
First Water, which was founded in 2017 under the name Landeldi hf., underwent an ISK 13.7 capital increase last year. When asked whether this can be considered remarkable growth for such a young company, Eggert agrees.
“Yes, one could say that. When I started working for the company in the autumn of 2022, the share capital amounted to ISK 3 million and since then, ISK 15.5 billion in share capital have been added,” he says. Eggert adds that the company has until now been built up with its own equity and that it has never been funded with loans, except when there were certain hinderances that had to be overcome.
“Now we are in a process of completing bank financing of the company.”