Saban Capital Group has received regulatory approval from Israel’s Ministry of Communications to buy a 30.73% stake in Israeli telco Partner Communications from Scailex, with plans to buy a further 2% from Bank Leumi.
Holding company Scailex announced…
Saban Capital Group has received regulatory approval from Israel’s Ministry of Communications to buy a 30.73% stake in Israeli telco Partner Communications from Scailex, with plans to buy a further 2% from Bank Leumi.
Holding company Scailex announced yesterday that its sale of Partner shares to Saban had been approved and that the transaction was expected to be completed in the next few days.
As TelecomFinance previously reported, Saban Capital – owned by US-Israeli media magnate Haim Saban – had agreed to acquire Scailex’s stake in the telco for about US$365.13m and to take on Partner’s debt pile of US$300m.
In November’s announcement of the Saban/Scailex deal, it was also noted that Bank Leumi, which has a 4.99% stake in Partner, could sell up to 3,166,677 shares to Saban as part of a “tag-along right”.
It was reported by Reuters today that Saban will buy an extra 2% of the telco from Israel’s Bank Leumi, equating to 3.2 million shares.
This stake will be purchased for approximately US$22m, according to local media reports cited by the news service.
Partner’s ADSs are quoted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market and its shares are also traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
The company reported total revenues of NIS1.3bn (US$336m) for Q3/2012, down 25% from the same period last year.
