Biomedix Incubator Ltd. (TASE:BMDX) subsidiary Meytav Technological Enterprises Innovation Center Ltd.'s shareholders have decided to sell Meytav's stakes in two portfolio companies - NasVax Ltd. (TASE: NSVX) and Collplant Inc. - to Biomedix. Biomedix will acquire the stakes through subsidiary, Cure Investments Ltd.
Meytav will sell its 8.5 million shares in NasVax at a 10% discount on their market price or NIS 1 per share, whichever is lower. This will give a maximum of NIS 8.5 million at a company value of NIS 34 million, 30% below its market cap of NIS 42.1 million. The share rose 4% in morning trading today to NIS 1.40. NasVax is developing a universal flu vaccine.
Meytav will sell all its 65,661 shares in Collplant at $45 per share, for a total of $2.9 million at a company value of $12 million. Collplant was valued at $39 million for its last financing round, held before the market crisis. Collplant is developing human collagen from transgenic plants.
A few weeks ago, Meytav's minority shareholders rejected the deal, but were subsequently unable to find a buyer for the companies at a better price. Since Meytav is struggling financially, and Biomedix does not want to make additional investments in the incubator at this time, the sale of the portfolio companies was apparently the only way to obtain capital. Meytav's minority shareholders can take their share of the proceeds, but apparently won't do so.
Biomedix owns 88.5% of Meytav. It owns 57% of Cure Investments, with the rest held by institutional investors. Biomedix's share rose 1.1% in morning trading today to NIS 0.67, giving a market cap of NIS 62.6 million, after rising 5.4% yesterday.
Biomedix vice chairman Ran Nussbaum said, "This deal is an exercise of our strategy to keep Meytav as a company for seed investments and Cure as a holding company for mature companies."
Sources inform ''Globes'' that Biomedix wants to consolidate some of the administrative operations of its two incubators, Meytav and Ashkelon Technological Industries (ATI). Each incubator will forego its CEO and they will probably have one chairman and share various resources.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 9, 2009
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