Aspen Group to sell solar energy installations

Tamir Polikar
Tamir Polikar

The company wants to focus on its income producing real estate business.

Aspen Group Ltd. (TASE:ASGR) is exiting its solar energy business in order to focus on its income producing real estate business. The company notified the Tel Aviv Stock exchange that it was inviting investors to submit offers for 307 photo-voltaic installations that it owns, some of them with partners (the company itself has 274 solar systems), with a total output of some 15.5 megawatts.

Aspen entered the solar energy business just two years ago, when it spent NIS 127 million on buying 148 small solar energy production systems from electrical products importer Brimag, each with an output of 50 kilowatts, for total of 7.7 megawatts. Since then, the company has expanded this activity, but the profits on it are expected to shrink in the future because of the drop in solar power tariffs over the next two years.

Apart from solar energy, Aspen is mainly active in the purchase, letting, renovation and management of income producing assets, including office, commercial, industrial and logistics buildings in Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Its income producing properties total 340,000 square meters of space, and are let to 270 lessees with 96% occupancy.

Aspen, controlled by Roni Zarum, posted a 10.5% rise in revenue to NIS 160 million in 2015. Its operating profit shot up 39% to NIS 174 million, thanks to, among other things, asset revaluations totaling NIS 59 million, but its net profit shrank 10% to NIS 26.2 million.

Aspen CEO Tamir Polikar and chairman Guy Pereg said, “We continue to work to our strategic plan , and are focusing on our core activity in income producing real estate. In this context, and following approaches received from potential investors in the past year, we are examining the sale of our solar energy business, and we invite investors to submit offers for the solar installations we own. This move should enhance the company’s value, expand its liquidity, and enable it to reduce its debt. At the same time, we shall examine various opportunities for expanding our income producing real estate activity in Israel and overseas.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 3, 2016

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2016

Tamir Polikar
Tamir Polikar
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