There has been a major development in the debt settlement saga of IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH), controlled by Nochi Dankner. IDB Holding bondholders are in advanced talks with Argentine businessman Eduardo Elsztain on an injection of NIS 770 million in the company, at a value of NIS 824 million, in exchange for a 51% stake in wholly-owned subsidiary IDB Development Corporation.
The IDB Holding bondholders representative will put this agreement to a vote by the bondholders at Tuesday's meeting, and to give it exclusivity.
The negotiations with Elsztain bypass Dankner. After an earlier investment of $25 million in IDB, Elsztain promised to hold talks only with Dankner.
The bondholders apparently want to take over IDB, through a distribution in kind. At Sunday's bondholders meeting, a majority of bondholders voted in favor of distributing IDB Development shares between them on the basis of the size of IDB Holding's debt to each creditor.
Although the proposed investment by Elsztain is less than what Dankner is offering the bondholders in his agreement with Alexander Granovsky, under which BGI Investments (1961) Ltd. (TASE: BGI) will invest NIS 826 million in IDB, the bondholders prefer Elsztain because they believe that there is a better chance of a deal with him materializing.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 19, 2013
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