For the second time this week, Nochi Dankner has taken the stand in the trial where he is charged with manipulating the shares of IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) in February 2012, with the presumed aim of improving the terms of the company’s offering that was taking place at the time. Dankner is being charged together with Itay Strum in the Tel Aviv District Court, before Judge Khaled Kabub.
“I believed that IDB would come out of its crisis,” said Dankner. “A lot of my personal money went into the company and was intended for the purchase of IDB shares up to November 2012.”
When Dankner was asked by Adv. Iris Niv-Sabag about the investors who participated in the offering, he said, “Despite the reports in the press on my statement that Mrs. Cohen from Hadera did not participate in the offering, I have re-checked the figures, and 85% of the participants in the offering are what would be called ‘friends,’ and not as was reported.
“I want to say, regarding my faith in the company,” continued Dankner, “I personally invested a lot of my own money and then I took further credit from a foreign bank. Over the course of nine months, until November, I believed in the company, to the extent that I bought huge amounts of IDB shares, totaling at least NIS 56 million.”
Dankner said, "I'm not aware that I did anything illegal. When Itay asked for help, I felt that as a friend, I ought to help."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 15, 2015
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