Non-banking credit company MLRN Projects and Trading is holding a bond issue on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). The company reported yesterday excess demand in its bond issue, which will be increased to NIS 120 million, instead of NIS 80 million, as originally planned.
MLRN began operating in 2008. The company says that its activity focuses especially on "providing credit to businesses in the Arab sector, mainly through trade in deferred receivables." Trade in deferred receivables is a conversion transaction in which the company's customers receive the value of postdated checks, which are assigned to the company in exchange for a percentage commission.
MLRN is controlled by founder and CEO Muand Rian, an Israeli Arab who grew up in Kfar Bara in the triangle region northeast of Tel Aviv and recently moved to Kfar Shmaryahu.
The presentation and draft prospectus published by MLRN for its bond issue indicates that Rian, 42, has a B Sc in computer science from Netanya Academic College and 20 years of experience in non-banking credit. He formerly owned a company that traded and distributed computer systems in the Arab sector. MLRN states that Rian "is a key figure in the company and in management of its business, given his many years of experience in the company's field of business."
Informed sources said today that during his activity in the computer field, Rian studied the problems experienced by Israeli Arab-owned business in obtaining credit, and decided to move into the sector.
In order to find a TASE-listed company controlled by an Arab entrepreneur, it is necessary to go to the previous decade and companies controlled by the late entrepreneur Ibrahim Bolos from Akko. These companies, which were in the construction industry (Bolos Marble and Bolos Gad) and the tourism industry (Bolos Tourism and Hoteliery), collapsed in early 2000.
Annual salary cost: NIS 1.2 million
Like many of his predecessors, Rian made sure to increase his salary before his company reached the TASE. Starting last September, Rian has been providing management services to MLRN through TripleTech for NIS 150,000 a month, compared with the NIS 100,000 a month that he received under his employment agreement at the company from March 2016. The cost of his employment in the company in 2018 totaled NIS 1.2 million.
According to the data reported by MLRN, the 11 year-old company has 20 employees and is well reputed in the market, with a credit portfolio amounting to NIS 307 million and equity of NIS 58 million. The company finished the first half of 2019 with a 24% increase to NIS 25 million in revenue. A steep rise in management, general, and other expenses, however, kept its net profit down to just over NIS 5 million, only 4% more than in the corresponding period last year.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 30, 2019
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