The largest fish farm company in Ireland, Gaelic Seafoods, is back on the market again after a potential Norwegian purchaser opted only to buy its Scottish operations. The move by Stolt Seafarms, Norway's second largest aquaculture company, to buy seven salmon farms on the east coast of the Hebrides and some freshwater hatchery operations is regarded in the industry as a strategic move inside EU trade barriers on the volume and price of Norwegian imports.

One industry source said the price tag would be in the region of £8 million for a business which has an annual turnover of about £7 million.

It is the first acquisition by Stolt Seafarms - a division of the tanker/engineering company Stolt-Nielsen - of salmon interests outside Norway.

Mr Oystein Steiro, Stolt's vice-president of business development, said last night that the proximity of the Outer Hebrides to Norway was a factor in the purchase which is expected to be completed this week.

"Organisationally, to deal with two different operations, in Ireland and in Scotland, would be somewhat awkward," he said.

He added that while the Scottish operation would be strategically useful for UK and European sales, the European market, along with emerging ones in the Far East, continued to be important for the Norwegian farms. Gaelic Seafoods is owned by Mr Stuart Baillie, a Scotsman, and two Englishmen, Mr Richard Gabriel and Mr Dan Drew. A spokesman or Gaelic Seafoods said that following a process of due diligence, where the company's books were open to scrutiny, Stolt had decided to concentrate on the Scottish end of the business which comprises over one third - 3,500 tonnes per annum - of the combined British/Irish operations. "The Irish operation is still on the market and there is a considerable amount of interest in it," he said. Mr Ritchie Flynn of the Irish Salmon Growers Association said that a move by Stolt in Ireland and Scotland simultaneously would have meant entering two different regulatory regimes.

"The Irish element of Gaelic Seafoods is a very attractive option on its own because it is a fully integrated company," he said.

The Irish operations, employing 160 people in Connemara and the south-west, account for about 40 per cent of the annual £60 million industry which produces 15,000 tonnes of salmon.