The historic group has definitively pressed the disconnection button in the Port of La Luz for one of its emblematic subsidiaries. The decision to liquidate Pescaeste, S.A., announced during the call for its Extraordinary General Meeting on March 20 and 21, 2026, puts an end to a corporate agony marked by the tightening of administrative sanctions and an evident financial suffocation that has made the continuity of the company unsustainable.
The fall of Pescaeste is not an isolated event but the outcome of a year of internal turbulence. Already in October 2025, the ordinary board hinted at the seams of the entity when it was forced to assess the distribution of reserves under notarial requirement and to finance the travel expenses of partners increasingly distanced from the management of Manuel Freire Veiga. The change in leadership to Santiago Freire Rodríguez, now as sole administrator, was not to refloat the company but to steer its definitive dismantling and hand over the keys to the liquidator Santiago González Méndez.
The final blow, however, came from the South Atlantic. The company, which operated under the Freiremar brand, was implicated in an international fishing scandal following a complaint from the organization Oceana. The trawler Farruco, the flagship of Pescaeste, was caught sailing with the identification system (AIS) turned off in the waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone of Argentina between 2020 and 2021. The General Directorate of Merchant Marine was relentless in 2023: a fine of 39,100 euros for what was considered a deliberate maneuver to conceal its position in prohibited fishing grounds or avoid competition.
The administration’s arguments were devastating for the company’s image, emphasizing that turning off the locator was not an accidental malfunction but a common practice to ‘ignore the inherent precautions of maritime safety‘ in search of illicit gains. This fine, added to those imposed on the rest of the group’s fleet (Fakir, Festeiro, and Freiremar Uno), ultimately undermined the economic viability of a structure already suffering from serious asset deterioration.
With the dissolution of Pescaeste, a key piece of Freiremar’s network in Las Palmas disappears. The agenda for the March meeting is clear and does not allow for a turnaround: dismiss the administrator, certify the legal death of the company, and present a final liquidation balance within six months. This marks the closure of a chapter for the Port of La Luz, where the giants of Galician-Canarian trawling continue to lower their sails, besieged by satellite surveillance and the exhaustion of a business model that no longer finds shelter either in the courts or in the fishing grounds of the South.
News written by Raquel Molina. Edited and verified by José L. Jiménez. Unfiltered cross-referenced information. This analysis has not been funded by official advertising nor conditioned by lobby interests.
