Retailing company Shufersal Ltd. (TASE:SAE), headed by Itzik Abercohen, has taken advantage of an excellent period for its business and a lively capital market to raise NIS 700 million from Israeli and overseas investors, in exchange for 10% of the company. Market sources estimate that about half the amount raised came from overseas investors, mainly in Europe, and the rest from Israelis.
The offering, demand for which was more than double the amount raised, was made a price of NIS 26 per share, representing a 3% discount on the market price, which has risen by nearly 30% over the past year, giving Shufersal a market cap of nearly NIS 6.5 billion.
The Israeli underwriter for the offering was Epsilon. The international distributor was Citigroup. Shufersal will use the capital raised to reduce its leverage and to expand into new businesses.
Shufersal's revenue grew by 13% in 2020 to over NIS 15 billion, and its net profit shot up 44% to NIS 387 million. The company declared a NIS 140 million dividend.
Last week, consumer goods importer Diplomat raised NIS 300 million at a post-money valuation of NIS 1.5 billion, and clothing company Delta Brands raised NIS 260 million at a post-money valuation of NIS 1.3 billion. Airtouch Solar, a developer of solar panel cleaning robots, raised NIS 60 million at a valuation of NIS 400 million; AI image recognition company PomVom raised almost NIS 40 million at a valuation of NIS 130 million; Flying Spark, a developer of methods for producing human-consumable protein from fruit fly larvae, raised NIS 24 million at a valuation of just over NIS 80 million; and the Iargento High-Tech Assets partnership raised NIS 42 million, NIS 35 million from the public and NIS 10 million from the general partner.
These IPOs bring the number of new companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange so far in 2021 to 21. Another eighteen companies that have published IPO prospectuses (fourteen technology companies and four R&D partnerships) plan to raise an aggregate NIS 1.8 billion.
The IPO of private power station company Dalia Energies, however, looks as though it will be deferred because of differences over pricing between the company and the financial institutions considering taking part in the offering.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 8, 2021
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