Israeli company BATM, which is engaged in the development and manufacture of fast communication switches, will move in May from the British AIM stock exchange, to trading on London’s main stock exchange, BATM general manager Zvi Marom told "Globes".
"When we issued in July 1996, we announced our intention of moving to the main market. Today, after two and a half years, we meet all the criteria needed in order to trade on the main stock exchange. Company valuation stands at $120 million, and equity at Stg. 20 million, compared to the Stg. 10 million entry level, and we will therefore move to it in May 1999."
BATM manufactures and develops fast communications switches for Ethernet, fast Ethernet, and giga Ethernet networks, and switches for communications protocols of telecommunications companies infrastructures, mainly those based on IP protocols. The company has cooperation agreements with 3M for the provision to organizations of communications solutions based on optic cables. In 1998, it received equipment orders from 3M totaling $12.5 million.
Two weeks ago, BATM acquired NetWiz from IIS in a cash and guarantees deal totaling $2 million. Following the acquisition, the twenty-eight NetWiz employees joined the one hundred and sixty BATM employees. Marom explained NetWiz’s importance stemmed, among other things, from a communications R&D project that it is heading. The research is being conducted in cooperation with a consortium of European companies, the universities of Paris and Bristol, and the Swiss nuclear research laboratory CERN.
The aim of the project is to develop a fast communications switch core chip, capable of providing advanced services at high speed transmissions of 256 Mbps, in which it will provide IP switch capabilities and QOS solutions.
BATM is owned by Zvi Marom, David Goldman (former SAGE international software group manager), the Soros Investment fund, and other funds. 30% of ownership is in public hands.
Published by Israel's Business Arena February 25, 1999