Infrastructure investment company Keystone Infra (TASE: KSTN) will officially join Delek Israel and Leumi Partners in the consortium buying Hot Mobile. Negotiations between the parties were first reported by "Globes". Keystone will replace More Investment House, which will not participate in the deal.
Completion of the deal depends on several factors, such as the official formation of the partnership, and regulatory approvals. No material difficulties are expected, and the deal should be completed shortly.
In January, Delek Israel signed an MOU for the acquisition of the mobile telephony company of the Hot group, headed by Patrick Drahi. The price at the time was NIS 1.88 billion. Last month it was reported that Delek Israel had brought Bank Leumi’s investment arm Leumi Partners in as a partner, with a 20% stake, at a post-money valuation of NIS 1 billion. Now Keystone is joining the group, with it and Delek Israel expected to hold 40% each.
Despite the high valuation for Hot Mobile, in practice the buyers will have to put up much less money - about NIS 500 million altogether. Examinations carried out in the past few weeks have led to adjustments whereby the current controlling shareholders will receive NIS 1.2 billion, but NIS 700 million of that will come from Hot Mobile itself through a loan that it will take.
What does Keystone, an infrastructure fund, seek in Hot Mobile? This is not an obvious deal for Keystone, which mostly works with giant companies, sometimes international ones, and with governments. The answer is the infrastructure, the cellular network that Hot Mobile shares with Partner. In the collaboration with Delek Israel, the latter will probably run the retail side while Keystone works to upgrade the infrastructure.
Keystone reported the negotiations on the deal to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange this week, but has yet to give final approval to it, although in practice the amount it will have to contribute is not expected to be dramatic, and to amount to some NIS 200 million according to the above structure.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on April 30, 2026.
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