Online trading platform Plus500 Ltd. is beginning the road show for its IPO on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), and will begin to be traded on July 24.
Plus500 is a pure Internet company, and the first Israeli Internet company to float on the AIM since 888 Holding plc (LSE:888) and Playtech Cyprus Ltd. (LSE:PTEC) in the summer of 2005 and the spring of 2006, respectively. Plus500 plans to raise $50 million, at a company value of $200 million, before money.
The offering will consist in equal parts of an issue of new shares, the proceeds of which will go to the company, and an offer for sale by shareholders, who will pocket the proceeds themselves.
Plus500 was founded by six entrepreneurs, including CEO Gal Haber and managing director Alon Gonen, who is the technological brains behind it. Gonen owns 39.7% of Plus500 through his company Wavesoft Ltd., worth almost $80 million on paper.
Haber and Gonen co-founded Interlogic Ltd., which operates online backgammon site Play65. Gonen avoids the media. He made news in the summer of 2005, during Interlogic's legal battle with Noam Lanir's Empire Online Ltd.
A person close to Gonen told "Globes" that he "is a crazy genius," but adds that this makes it hard to work with him.
Haber is Plus500's second largest shareholder, with a 14.1% stake, worth $28 million on paper. He owns the stake through his private company Sparta24 Ltd. He is the only company founder who represents it to the media.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 7, 2013
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