"We've been looking for a partner for months. Because I saw the coming storm in the telecommunications industry. Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) needs a bigger and broader financial body, and it was my responsibility to find such a partner to give it what I could not. Hutchison is a huge company that knows Israel. It would have been difficult for someone who didn’t know to enter," Ilan Ben-Dov told "Globes" after selling control of Partner back to Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. (NYSE: HTX; HKSE: 2332). "Partner was too big for me," he concluded, but declined to say more.
Sources close to the deal said that Ben-Dov was broken by the impossible regulations, which sent the mobile sector into a tailspin, destroying his original forecasts on the basis of which he originally acquired Partner in 2009.
The sources added that the latest developments in the mobile market are exactly what the carriers warned about. The sources said that Israel's demand for regulation is dangerous, and that competition was increased in an irresponsible way. "No country in the world lowered connectivity fees like here. No country in the world brought in so many new players into the market at once. Nothing will help; in the end it will be impossible to have a mobile sector with NIS 100 a month all-inclusive plans," said a source.
The source added that the damage caused by the irresponsible regulation to the public's pensions and investors "does not in any way equal the alleged benefit achieved. The public does not see these things because it now only sees the drop in the price. But the market will ultimately converge, because Israel is no different from France or England, and there is simply no business model that will let five independent carriers operate in such a small market as ours."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 5, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012