The group that will acquire the Gadish provident fund will consist of a group of investors led by Psagot Financing And Factoring Ltd. (TASE:PSFN), managed by Shimon Hiblum and owned by Avihai Stolero. Conneticut-based investment house Plainfield Asset Management LLC, which hold will 45%; Psagot Financing, which will hold 25% with the remaining 30% jointly held by businessman Ron Weissberg and a group of Canadian investors.
Playfield Special Situation, the fund through which Playfield will hold its stake in Gadish, has $4 billion in assets under management. It is managed by Plainfield co-founder and chief investment officer Max Holmes, and co-founder and head of corporate finance Niv Harizman.
Plainfield will be the second US investment fund to enter Israel after York Capital Management LLC, following the introduction of the Bachar capital market reforms. Sources close to the group expect that the agreement with Bank Hapoalim (LSE: BKHD; TASE: POLI) will be closed within two weeks, with Holmes expected to come to Israel to oversee negotiations. Weissberg is likely to be appointed chairman of Gadish, and former ILD Insurance Holdings Ltd. (TASE:ILDH) assistant CEO Oded Benjamin will join the senior management team.
Under the agreement with Bank Hapoalim, Gadish will be sold to the Heiblum group for NIS 650 million, a price that reflects 3.1% of fund assets. Investment management company Gmulot will also be sold along with Gadish. An estimated 50% of the deal will be transacted with bank finance, and the tax structure will be similar to that of a goodwill deal (acquisition of activity, not shares). Bank Hapoalim deputy general manager of international division Barry Ben-Zeev is handling negotiations on behalf of the bank.
Bank Hapoalim declined to comment on the report.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 11, 2007
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