Deutsch, Biram transfer Sunflower to their Keystone fund

Gil Deutsch and Roni Biram / Photo: Rami Zaranger

Foreign investment in TASE hits five-year high

Together with Redmill Holdings and Union Investments, Roni Biran and Gil Deutsch are selling shares to Keystone and Leumi Partners.

Sunflower Sustainable Investment Ltd. (TASE: SNFL) has notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange of an agreement for the sale of control in the company (64%). The sellers are Roni Biram and Gil Deutsch, together with Redmill Holdings Ltd. and Union Investments and Development Ltd., owned by Roxanne and Andrew Horesh (children of Toyota importer George Horesh).

The buyers are infrastructures fund Keystone, also owned by Biram and Deutsch, which will buy 70% of the shares being sold, and Leumi Partners, which will buy the remainder.

The price of the shares in the agreement is just over NIS 10, giving Sunflower a valuation of NIS 335 million, 12% above its current market cap. Sunflower's share price jumped 13% earlier this month after the company notified the stock exchange of the negotiations on the current deal. So far this year, Sunflower's share price has risen by 30%.

The sale agreement stipulates that if Sunflower wins a claim under arbitration "against the Kingdom of Spain", the sellers will be entitled to additional consideration of up to a little over NIS 1 per share, in accordance with the amount awarded to the company. Completion of the deal is subject to a number of preconditions.

Biram and Deutsch currently own 23% of Sunflower each. Redmill Holdings owns 15% and Union Investments and Development 10%.

Sunflower, which in the past focused on solar energy, announced in 2015 that it would stop buying energy assets, and in fact sold assets in Israel and Europe with the intention of exiting its energy business. Today, the company deals in power production using wind power technology in Poland, and in income producing real estate through a holding in a property at Ra'anana Junction mostly leased to Amdocs Ltd. (Nasdaq: DOX) until the end of 2022.

Keystone is a real estate investment trust (REIT) set up by Biram, Deutsch and Navot Bar. Since it was founded in 2019 it has raised NIS 500 million. It is due to be floated on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange by the beginning of 2022.

As far as is known, Keystone will make Sunflower its renewable energy arm, bringing together all the fund's renewable energy business.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 30, 2021