Foreign investors eye Tnuva shares
Two international investment bodies showing interest in Israeli cooperative's stock, which is being offered for sale by some kibbutzim
International investors are showing an interest in the shares of Israeli cooperative Tnuva,
which are being offered for sale by some kibbutzim.
The two bodies are the London-based Capital Group investment group, which manages more than $100 billion and makes global investments in public and private companies in a variety of sectors, and the InterTech Group owned by the Zucker family from the United States, which has more than 200 holdings in different companies.
Yedioth Ahronoth has learned that two investment bodies have inquired on the price of the shares and requested further details.
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As first reported by Yedioth Ahronoth, two of the economic organizations of the kibbutzim which own Tnuva shares – Milouot of Kibbutzei Hamifratz from the Western Galilee and Tzemach from Beit She'an Valley, which together hold some 6% of Tnuva shares – are interested in selling them.
The kibbutzim have entrusted the sale issue to Attorney Gideon Fisher and an investment bank.
These organizations are not interested in keeping the shares in order to try to gain control of Tnuva one day, explaining it is only a financial holding. These kibbutzim have no dairy farms and they do not sell milk to Tnuva, and would like to sell the shares and collect more than NIS 400 million ($110 million).
They set the required price after Apax, Tnuva's controlling shareholder, estimated the dairy's value for its upcoming initial public offering at NIS 8 billion ($2.22 billion).
According to sources in the organizations, if the IPO is carried out soon they will sell the shares as part of the IPO, but in any event they are not interested in keeping them.
The Gideon Fisher & Co. Law Office offered the following statement in response: "Indeed, appeals have been made in recent weeks by relevant sources from abroad. When we have anything to report, we'll do it the conventional way."
