Telecommunications company Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL) will attempt to raise NIS 470 million today in a public offering in Israel of its new L series debentures. The company published a shelf offering yesterday on the basis of a shelf prospectus filed in the past, according to which it has already secured NIS 400 million in the institutional auction, in which the maximum interest rate was set at 2.5%, which represents a 1.2% margin over government bonds with a similar duration.
The L series is a non-linked shekel-denominated series, with a duration of 6.9 years. The series, which will be repaid in six equal annual instalments between 2023 and 2028 received an A rating from S&P Maalot, which stressed that the offering proceeds would be used to finance Cellcom's regular activity.
According to a report from Cellcom, the among the main buyers in the institutional offering Psagot (NIS 96 million), Yelin Lapidot (NIS 47 million) Meitav Dash (NIS 30 million) IBI (NIS 23 million) and Analyst (NIS 22 million) were prominent. The offering is led by Epsilon Underwriting and Issuing and Leader Underwriters.
Cellcom is part of Discount Investment, controlled by Eduardo Elsztain. Discount Investment and Cellcom announced yesterday that they had found a technical solution for the requirement of Cellcom's mobile telephony license that 5% of a mobile company should be held by an Israeli party resident in Israel.
Under the proposal, which the Ministry of Communications has approved, Discount Investment unit Koor Industries will transfer 5% of its shares in Cellcom to two Israelis resident in Israel. They are Mauricio Wior, vice chairman of Cellcom, and an officer in a company controlled by Discount Investment. The two will hold the shares (2.5% each) in special purpose companies incorporated in Israel. The transfer will be in the form of a loan cancellable at any time by Discount Investment, and the two companies will not be allowed to sell the shares to a third party without Discount Investment's consent, and in any case a sale can only be to an "Israeli entity".
Discount Investment has reported that it is examining the possibility of bidding to buy control of Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ). If it does so, it will be obliged to part from control of Cellcom.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 23, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018