Arazim Investment Ltd. (TASE: AZRM) plans to double its portfolio assets to $2 billion within a year. The company plans to focus on the US market. The company plans to raise hundreds of millions of shekels in a private placement of straight bonds from institutional investors for this purpose. Maalot The Israel Rating Company Ltd. has rated the bonds A+, and they will carry 4.25-4.75% interest.
Arazim CEO Tali Yaron-Aldar told “Globes”, “We’re considering buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of residential properties in the US.” She added that the company had recently substantially raised the threshold of deals it was examining. “We plan to diversify our investments. Arazim has demonstrated over time stability in terms of the quality of tenants, but we’re currently concentrated in the UK (and thereby exposed to the pound sterling - U.S.), and entry into Germany and the US (exposing the company to the euro and dollar, respectively- U.S.) will give us balance both in terms of geography and also in terms of currencies.”
Arazim’s share has recovered from its eight-month slide, and has risen 40% since January to reach a market cap of NIS 1.03 billion.
Yaron-Aldar says, “The value of our properties isn’t reflected in the share price. We’ll begin seeing this very well when we apply International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in our financial reports. After applying the European standard, the value of our assets will increase by hundreds of millions of shekels.” She added that the application of IFRS was unrelated to the company’s plans to add $1 billion in assets through the purchase of properties.
Arazim today notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) in response to the “Globes” article that “the deal described in the article was in the preliminary examination stage, and that the company’s position is that there was no need to make an immediate report about it.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 1, 2007
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