Dan Goldstein continues to make changes at Formula Vision, changes that have now reached the group's venture capital arm, Formula Ventures II. Formula Ventures will sell its entire stake in the Formula Ventures II fund for $3.3 million to an Israel fund that specializes in buying fund portfolios, and will post a NIS 13 million capital loss.
The numbers reveal that that value of the fund's holdings in its portfolio companies is close to zero. Nevertheless, Formula Vision says that it is likely to be entitled to further payments on account of moves that will take place at two companies.
Formula Ventures second fund was raised in 2001, and managed some $90 million, which according to IVC mainly came from Formula itself and also from the Shamrock group, UBS, and other financial enterprises. The fund, managed by Shai Beilis, has several interesting companies in its portfolio, such as Civcom in telecommunications, Magink in printing, and Green Power Technologies in cleantech. Among Formula II's exits are Scopus Video Networks Ltd. (Nasdaq:SCOP), which was floated, and Identify Software, sold to BMC for $150 million.
Dan Goldstein, who controls Formula Vision, said the reason for the sale of the stake lay in the small holdings left in the fund that demanded a great deal of unnecessary effort. "Our policy was always to be more dominant in the company, and the fund is something of a leftover from the days of the technology bubble," Goldstein explained.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on November 14, 2007
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