The Altshuler Shaham investment house, managed by co-CEOs Gilad Altshuler and Ran Shaham, is considering an IPO for the provident and pension fund that it controls. Yair Lowenstein, CEO of Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds and Pension, Israel's largest provident funds company, wrote in a letter to the company's employees today, "We have decided to consider the possibility of an offering of shares in Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds and Pension on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE)." The investment house raised NIS 250 million in bonds in 2016.
Lowenstein added in his letter, "In recent years, we have jointly carried out actions that have changed the face of the market as we know it, including a provident fund for investment, a savings plan for every child, the Ministry of Finance's selected pensions fund reform, and huge financing rounds that have made us the largest provident and advanced training funds company in Israel, managing the money of 1.5 million customers," adding that the offering under consideration was "a continuation of these successes." He went on to write, "Together with Ran and Gilad, we will continue to control and manage the company."
Lowenstein also wrote, "We regard you, the employees of Altshuler Shaham, as an integral part of our success. Therefore, if the offering goes as planned, warrants will be distributed to all of the employees according to a warrants plan to be established… We will continue to inform you of developments in accordance with the Israel Securities Authority's regulatory rules. As of the date of this letter, there is no certainty about the date of the offering, or whether it will actually take place."
For Altshuler Shaham, making the long-term savings company a public company is not as dramatic as making the entire investment house a public company. Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds and Pension is already obligated to publish its financial statements and to behave like a public company, with external directors on its board, as are all institutional concerns managing long-term savings, which are subject to regulation by the Capital Market, Savings, and Insurance Authority.
As of the end of February, Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds and Pension managed NIS 81.2 billion in assets. It also managed an additional NIS 4.3 billion in new pension assets. The company had an aggregate 10% share of these two markets. Altshuler Shaham is one of the four pension concerns selected by the state as a default option for the public.
Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds and Pension made a NIS 40 million profit on NIS 527 million in revenue in 2018, compared with a NIS 20 million profit on NIS 379 million in revenue in 2017. The company's shareholders' equity at the end of 2017 amounted to NIS 176.3 million.
Altshuler Shaham owns 61.75% of the shares in Altshuler Shaham Provident Funds and Pension, with Perfect YNE Capital markets, controlled by Lowenstein with a 50.33% share, holding a 38.25% stake.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on April 3, 2019
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