Israeli company Oshap today announced its sale to US software house SunGard for $210 million. Oshap, managed by Aharon and Shlomo Dovrat, is a holding company in the field of software traded on Wall Street. Among other holdings, it has an 18% stake in Tecnomatix, which develops production engineering software.
The deal will be executed via a share swap, and reflects a valuation 61% higher than Oshap’s $130 million stock exchange value before trading opened today.
Company general manager Shlomo Dovrat holds 15.4% of Oshap, and his shares are worth $32.2 million. His father, Aharon Dovrat, who is chairman the board, holds, according to estimates, 2% of the shares, worth $4.2 million.
Apart from its Tecnomatix holding, Oshap’s value stems mainly from two subsidiaries, MINT, and Decalog. These two companies, which develop software for the financial sector, were due to issue their shares at an overall value of $300 million. US investment bank Robertson Stephens was scheduled to lead the issues. It also advised Oshap in the current deal.
SunGard is traded at a value of $4.2 billion on Wall Street. Two thirds of its revenue, which totaled $1.16 billion in 1998, derive from sales of software and services to finance houses and banks. It seems SunGard will use MINT and Decalog to expand the product range it offers its customers.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on March 10, 1999