Fishman Holdings yesterday sold a block of shares in Industrial Buildings Corp. (TASE: IBLD) in an effort to get the share included in the Tel Aviv 100 Index at the upcoming year-end update, a day after selling a NIS 40 million bloc of shares in another real estate company, Darban Investments Ltd. (TASE: DRBN), for the same purpose.

On Sunday, Fishman subsidiary Jerusalem Economy Ltd. (TASE:ECJM) (JEC) and Tao Tsuot Ltd. (TASE: TAO-M), controlled by Ilan Ben-Dov sold 5% of Darban, in order to increase the public float in the share. Fishman owns 54.2% of Darban and Tao Tsuot owns 23.5%, and its public float is 20.1%.

Yesterday, Fishman subsidiary Jerusalem Economy Ltd. (TASE:ECJM) (JEC) and Yitzhak Tshuva-controlled Delek Real Estate Ltd. (TASE: DLKR) sold 5% of Industrial Building for NIS 100 million. The shares were sold for between NIS 6.45 and NIS 6.48, around the company's market price

JEC sold 60% of the bloc of shares, reducing its holding to 69% from 72.4%, and Delek Real Estate reduced its stake to 14% from 16%. Industrial Building's float rose to about 17% from 10.7% before the sale, but it is still below the 20% threshold for inclusion on the Tel Aviv 100 Index.

However, next week Fishman and Ben-Dov are expected to complete their swap of Industrial Building's shares for Darban shares in which Industrial Building will receive 10.5% of Darban from Tao Tsuot in exchange for 4.9% of Industrial Building shares. When the swap is completed, Industrial Building's float will rise above the 20% threshold.

JEC's share 0.9% to NIS 22.20, giving a market cap of NIS 1.18 million. Industrial Building's share rose 0.4% to NIS 6.55, giving a market cap of NIS 2.01 billion. Darban's share fell 2.3% to NIS 15.46, giving a market cap of NIS 824 million.

Eliezer Fishman is the controlling shareholder in “Globes”.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 8, 2009

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