Lev Leviev
צילום: סיון פרג'
Leviev goes public in London, Arison in Tel Aviv
Africa Israel's Russian real-estate activity and Shikun Ovdim plan IPOs
A week after withdrawing its bid for Oil Refineries Ltd in Haifa, Africa Israel, controlled by business tycoon Lev Leviev, announced that it was issuing a draft prospectus for the London Stock Exchange for their Russian real-estate activity. Africa Israel controls 88 percent of the Russian construction company Stroicom.
There are no details about the IPO or when it will take place. During the last few months an actuary working on behalf of Africa Israel has been estimating the total value of assets and activity of the Russian company.
Analysts estimate its value at between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. The issue will be for 30-40 percent of the company's value.
Africa Israel announced last week that they had five Russian projects in the pipeline, mostly in Moscow, at the total of $400 million.
Lev Leviev's representative in his Russian diamond business said that they were also looking into the possibility of taking this business public on the Russian stock exchange.
The diamond businesses are owned solely by Leviev and are not connected to the public companies under his control. Before an IPO, Leviev will merge his mining and cutting/polishing activities.
At the same time, construction company Shikun Ovdim, controlled by billionaire Shari Arison is on its way to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The company is to be issued at a value of over NIS 1 billion.
Shikun Ovdim's revenue for the first nine months of 2006 reached NIS 764 million, with NIS 164 million in profits. Over 2005, the company turned over NIS 1.08 billion, with gains of NIS 155 billion.
Many other construction companies are planning to go public after international accounting regulations are adopted that will boost the value of the real-estate companies in their financial reports.
These new regulations state that the land owned by these companies will be registered at their market value, rather than their value in the books, which is lower.
Ofer Petersburg contributed to the report.
