Africa-Israel Investments Ltd. (TASE:AFIL; Pink Sheets:AFIVY) Series 9 bondholders received support today from the Official Receiver Shlomo Shahar, who made a statement to the Tel Aviv District Court in response to the company's request to convene a meeting to approve debt arrangements. Shahar said, "The facts detailed in the request do not provide an unequivocal response to the question of whether the business is insolvent or not."
The Official Receiver also disclosed that he himself is an Africa-Israel bondholder. In his response to the court he wrote, "In the interests of due diligence, the Official Receiver feels it only proper to bring to the honorable court's attention that in his role as the Custodian General, the investment unit acquired bonds of various series of the company between 2006-2008 including Series 9. The overall investment in the company's bonds amount to 0.25% of the total value of the Custodian General's investment portfolio."
The Official Receiver was referring to yesterday's statement to the court by the Israel Securities Authority, which said, "To the extent that the honorable court concludes that the answer to the question whether the company is insolvent is not unequivocal, or if it is negative, the Securities Authority believes that it is necessary to accept the approval of each bond series separately by a special majority of both the series as a whole and among the holders of it, who have no material conflict of interests with regard to the holding in that bond series."
The Israel Securities Authority also decided that, "In situations with these things, meetings of all bondholders of the various series for one arrangement could result in taking advantage to the detriment of debt certificate holders whose status will be weakened in relation to the company's other creditors."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 24, 2009
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