Melisron (TASE:MLSR is expected to buy the Budapest properties of Ofer Brothers controlling shareholders, the Yuli and Sammy Ofer families. Ofer Brothers Properties owns 55% of Melisron. The parties at interest transaction will in all likelihood amount to hundreds of millions of shekels. Melisron plans to finance part the deal through a bond issue.
At the same time, Ofer Brothers Properties is negotiating to acquire the stakes of Melisron 's other shareholders, Zohar Feiglin, Nehemia Kaplan, and Dov Barzilai. If the deal goes through, Ofer Brothers Properties will acquire 25% of Melisron at NIS 29.50 per share, 15% above today's share price, for NIS 160 million. Ofer Brothers Properties will own 80% of Melisron after the deal. Melisron's share price has doubled in the past year. Melisron owns and manages the thriving Kiryon Shopping Center in Kiryat Bialik near Haifa.
Ofer Brothers Properties is a private company, owned by the Yuli Ofer family (66%), and the Sammy Ofer family (33%). It has been active in Hungary for seven years. The company's Budapest properties include 65,000 sq.m. of income-producing properties (offices, commercial space, and parking lots), two hotels with 477 rooms altogether, a third hotel used as a student dormitory, and 50% of a 1,400-unit residential project.
Simultaneously with the negotiations to buy the owners' properties, Melisron's board of directors decided in principle to enter the Eastern European income-producing and residential development and construction markets. In line with this decision, Melisron will set up a joint company with Minrav Holdings (TASE:MNRV), controlled by its chairman Avraham Kuznitzky, to make new real estate investments in Hungary.
Melisron published its financial report for 2003 today. The company reported a net profit of NIS 48.6 million, 6% more than in 2002. Revenue from rent, management fees, and services totaled NIS 128.5 million, 3% more than in 2003, despite the recession and falling spending by consumers.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on March 16, 2004