Infiniband developer Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:MLNX; TASE:MLNX) is carrying out its threat and last night announced it is delisting from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), although its shares will continue to be traded on Nasdaq. Mellanox's move stems from opposition to Eyal Waldman renewing his term of office as both chairman and CEO of the company, which is deemed lacking in transparency and problematic from the corporate governance point of view, by local institutional shareholders.
In its announcement the company said that, "Mellanox is delisting its shares from the TASE in order to be subject to one set of listing regulations instead of two, to allow greater management focus on the company’s business, and to reduce cost of operations. As such, Mellanox has requested that the TASE immediately initiate the process to delist the company’s shares."
The delisting will take place three months from the date of notification, which will be the end of August, after which Mellanox will continue public reporting as required by the rules and regulations of Nasdaq and the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The delisting of Mellanox is a major blow to the TASE. Mellanox is traded on the Tel Aviv 25 Index, the largest 25 companies on the stock exchange, and has one of the highest trading turnovers on the TASE. Daily trading volumes on the TASE have already fallen sharply in the past few years, and the worry is that other dual traded shares will follow suit and delist from the TASE.
Waldman said, "While our listing on the TASE has provided a venue for certain Mellanox investors to trade, we believe it’s in the company’s best interest to concentrate our trading on NASDAQ."
Mellanox provides inter-connectivity products for the swift transfer of big data. The company's share price rose 0.81% on Nasdaq last night to $55.93, giving a market cap of $2.41 billion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 31, 2013
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