The largest chicken producer in the Nordic region is Swedish-listed, Stockholm-headquartered and, by share count, Portuguese-led. On Wednesday evening Scandi Standard AB, the owner of Kronfågel in Sweden, Danpo in Denmark, Den Stolte Hane in Norway, Naapurin Maalaiskana in Finland and Manor Farm in Ireland, confirmed that its SEK 408 million rights issue had been fully subscribed: holders exercised rights for 98.12 percent of the 3,268,143 new shares and applied for a further 107.55 percent without rights, so that total demand came to roughly twice the offer. No underwriting guarantee had to be called. Behind the clean headline sits an ownership contest that Swedish business media have spent the week calling a maktstrid, and at its centre is Grupo Lusiaves, the poultry group from Marinha das Ondas, Figueira da Foz, which held 21.3 percent of the company at the end of 2025 and has not stopped buying since.
Filings with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen), made in the name of Scandi Standard’s vice chairman Paulo Gaspar for a closely associated party, show Lusiaves buying on seven of the subscription period’s first eight trading days: 49,385 shares at SEK 145 to 150 and 2,202,569 subscription rights at SEK 1.06 to 1.30, enough on the issue’s twenty-for-one terms to subscribe for another 110,128 new shares on top of its pro-rata entitlement. Dagens Industri headlined the pattern on 14 September as “Scandi Standard’s Portuguese major owner keeps buying”. Two days later the trade title Food Supply reported that Lantmännen, the Swedish farmers’ cooperative, had bought 1.6 million shares and lifted its holding from 10.6 percent to just over 13 percent, an outlay of more than a quarter of a billion kronor that, the paper noted, did not show up in the Finansinspektionen insider register. Affärsvärlden called it a “chicken race between owners”.
Who owns Scandi Standard
Scandi Standard’s 2025 annual report lists its largest shareholders at 31 December: Grupo Lusiaves SGPS, held through a Euroclear Bank trustee account, with 14,065,641 shares (21.3 percent); Mats Qviberg’s Investment AB Öresund with 10,100,000 (15.3 percent); Lantmännen Animalieinvest AB with 6,985,225 (10.6 percent); Nordea Funds (6.1 percent); and Qviberg family members Eva Qviberg (5.9 percent), Mats Qviberg (5.5 percent) and Anna Engebretsen (2.2 percent). Those six named owners, controlling about 63 percent of the votes, committed in July to take up their pro-rata share of the rights issue and to guarantee the remaining 37 percent among themselves in proportion to their holdings; the guarantee turned out not to be needed. Lusiaves’ chairman Avelino Gaspar sits on the nomination committee, and Paulo Gaspar, vice-president of Grupo Lusiaves SGPS, was re-elected vice chairman of the board at the annual general meeting on 28 April 2026.
The Portuguese position has been built in the open. Dagens Industri reported the group’s buying spree as early as January 2024 and, in December 2024, ran Mats Qviberg’s view under the headline “the Portuguese probably want to buy up Scandi Standard”; Food Supply noted in November 2025 that the group by then owned a fifth of the company. This year’s purchases, reconstructed from the FI register, are shown below. Between November 2025 and 10 September 2026 Lusiaves added 427,291 shares in the market, paying about SEK 95 a share last winter and about SEK 148 this month, a 56 percent higher price for the same chicken.
| Period (trade dates) | Shares bought | Average price, SEK | Subscription rights bought |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 November – 12 December 2025 | 159,862 | 94.92 | – |
| 10 March – 30 March 2026 | 140,410 | 135.28 | – |
| 12 May – 22 June 2026 | 73,599 | 139.56 | – |
| 30 July – 6 August 2026 | 4,035 | 139.27 | – |
| 1 September 2026 | 19,545 | 144.98 | 35,683 at SEK 1.06 |
| 2 September 2026 | 276 | 145.00 | 288,272 at SEK 1.19 |
| 3 September 2026 | – | – | 618,561 at SEK 1.20 |
| 4 September 2026 | – | – | 584,904 at SEK 1.19 |
| 8 September 2026 | 27,736 | 149.92 | 560,149 at SEK 1.29 |
| 9 September 2026 | 1,417 | 150.00 | – |
| 10 September 2026 | 411 | 150.00 | 115,000 at SEK 1.30 |
| Total 1–10 September | 49,385 | 147.94 | 2,202,569 (SEK 2.69 million) |
Source: Finansinspektionen insider-transaction register, transactions reported for Paulo Gaspar (closely associated party) in Scandi Standard AB (publ), retrieved 18 September 2026. Averages and totals by NorthSouth HQ; May–June and March figures aggregate several daily filings.
What the rights issue does
The issue was resolved by the board on 30 July, the same day Scandi Standard announced the acquisition of Glenhaven Foods, a producer of frozen value-added poultry founded in 1986 in Arklow, County Wicklow, that supplies retailers, foodservice and quick-service restaurants in Ireland and the United Kingdom. An extraordinary general meeting approved the issue on 26 August; each share carried one subscription right and twenty rights bought one new share at SEK 125, a 2.8 percent discount to the theoretical ex-rights price on the 29 July close of SEK 128.80. The subscription window ran from 1 to 15 September. The company receives about SEK 408 million before costs of roughly SEK 4.3 million and underwriting fees of about SEK 6 million; its share count rises from 66,060,890 to 69,329,033, paid subscribed shares trade until 24 September and the new ordinary shares are expected to start trading on Nasdaq Stockholm on 28 September. “The oversubscribed rights issue is a clear expression of the support our shareholders have in Scandi Standard, our strategy and our future direction,” said chairman Johan Bygge; with the financing in place, management can “focus fully on completing the acquisition and continuing to develop Scandi Standard as a leading European chicken company”.
The operating business the owners are contesting is in good shape. Second-quarter net sales were SEK 3,691 million, up 4 percent at constant exchange rates, and operating income rose 30 percent to SEK 179 million, a 4.9 percent margin; for the first half, net sales were SEK 7,375 million and EBIT SEK 346 million, up 32 percent, with earnings per share of SEK 3.35. The group processed 151,000 tonnes of chicken in the six months, employs more than 3,600 people, reports annual sales above SEK 14 billion, and in May bought its previously leased Valla plant in Sweden for SEK 270 million. It also owns an integrated chicken operation in Lithuania and two breaded-poultry lines in the Netherlands.
Who Lusiaves is
Grupo Lusiaves is the leader of Portugal’s poultry sector and is celebrating its fortieth year. Registered as Grupo Lusiaves – SGPS, S.A. (NIF 507438884) at Rua da Fonte, Marinha das Ondas, with share capital of €70 million, it describes itself as a fully integrated agri-food group of more than 40 companies and more than 5,600 employees in Portugal, Spain and France, running the chain from feed (Racentro) and hatcheries in Pombal and Figueira da Foz through farms, slaughter and processing to brands and distribution. Its founding company, Lusiaves – Indústria e Comércio Agro-Alimentar, S.A., has €13 million of share capital and sits at the same address. The group has been expanding in Spain, where it integrated the Oblanca group, and this week Expresso put its annual turnover at €940 million under the headline “from the egg to the shelf”. In July it inaugurated what it calls the most advanced poultry farm in Iberia, São Pedro do Esteval 4.0, near Proença-a-Nova.
What Lusiaves wants in Sweden it has not said publicly beyond its board seats and its buying; Scandi Standard’s annual report records Paulo Gaspar as holding no shares personally while the group holds more than 15 percent. The arithmetic of the last three weeks is nonetheless clear. If the year-end holding is unchanged apart from the purchases in the FI register and all rights were exercised, Lusiaves went into the issue with about 14.33 million shares (21.7 percent), subscribed for 716,653 new shares pro rata plus 110,128 through the purchased rights, and emerges with roughly 15.16 million shares, or about 21.9 percent of the enlarged company, having committed in the region of SEK 143 million this year in market purchases and subscriptions. Lantmännen’s 8.6 million shares before the issue equal 13.0 percent, and stay at 13.0 percent if it took up its own rights. The Qviberg camp, with about 29 percent between Öresund and family members, is the swing vote; Dagens Industri quoted Mats Qviberg on 15 September saying he is “only out to make money”.
Why it matters for the corridor
This is the largest Portuguese industrial position in a Nordic listed company that NorthSouth HQ tracks, and it runs against the usual direction of corridor capital. The Nordic-to-Portugal flow is well documented on these pages: Lantmännen itself is in Portugal through Lantmännen Unibake, and Danish, Swedish and Norwegian food groups own Portuguese plants and distributors. A Figueira da Foz poultry group holding a fifth of the company that owns Kronfågel, Danpo and Den Stolte Hane is the reverse case: Portuguese agri-food capital positioned to shape, and possibly one day control, a Nordic national champion with SEK 14 billion of sales. The contest is also a study in three kinds of owner: an integrated Iberian producer with the deepest pockets and the highest average purchase price, a Swedish farmers’ cooperative that supplies the chicken and has just spent SEK 250 million to stay relevant, and a financial investor family that has said what it wants.
The next fixed points are the start of trading in the new shares on 28 September, the composition of the nomination committee for the 2027 annual general meeting, which is set from the holdings on 31 August and announced in October, the closing of the Glenhaven acquisition, and Scandi Standard’s third-quarter report. NorthSouth HQ has added Grupo Lusiaves to the Portuguese Companies in Scandinavia directory today; its profile is here.