Avi Gabbay and Shlomo Rodav are close to signing a deal with Hutchison Group to buy Israeli telecom company Partner Communications Co. Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE:PTNR), after last night officially submitting a bid to buy its shares.
The court appointed trustee responsible for Hutchison's shares in Partner is expected to accept the bid and the sale should go through this week or by the beginning of next week.
The Rodav Group is offering to buy Hutchison's 27.1% stake for about $300 million, and it is doing so without due diligence, which will only further encourage Hutchison to accept the offer.
Moreover, there is unlikely to be any objection from Israeli regulators to Rodav and Gabbay, another advantage to the deal, whereas regulatory approval for US investment firm Apollo Global Management, which has also been negotiating to buy Partner, was not certain.
The negotiations are being led by Shlomo Rodav while Avi Gabbay has maintained a distance after stepping down as CEO of telecom rival Cellcom Israel Ltd. (OTC:CELJF; TASE:CEL) at the start of the week.
Rodav has been in talks with Hutchison for several months now. Initially, he had attempted to obtain an owners' loan from Hutchison to finance the acquisition but after being refused he has formed a consortium of investors to submit his official offer yesterday.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 24, 2021.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2021.