Business in Brief: Fosun Chief Visits Israel in Bid to Pave Way for Purchase of Phoenix Holdings

Fosun chief visits Israel in bid to pave way for purchase of Phoenix Holdings

The chairman of Fosun International – the Chinese conglomerate that is seeking to acquire a controlling interest in the Israeli insurance and investment firm Phoenix Holdings – made a lightning visit to Israel at the end of last week. He is trying to convince the commissioner of capital markets that his reported disappearance and brief detention by Chinese authorities last month should not disqualify Fosun from acquiring the Phoenix stake from the Delek Group. Guo Guangchang is understood to have told capital markets commissioner Dorit Salinger that his detention involved him assisting in a number of investigations. He had reportedly been arrested over corruption allegations. Guangchang left Israel without receiving an answer from Salinger as to whether she will approve Fosun’s acquisition of 52.3% of Phoenix for 1.85 billion shekels ($472 million). Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported the arrest of a former Communist party deputy secretary at Fosun on suspicions of corruption. (Michael Rochvarger and Assa Sasson)

Investors buy shares off-market of software monetization firm Somoto

Tzachi Sultan, Ya’akov Tanenbaum and four other investors have bought shares off-market of Somoto, a company that provides services to help software developers generate income from their products. The 2.1 million shares were sold by Eyal Yaakov, who is a company director and technology VP of a Somoto subsidiary. Tanenbaum bought 121,000 shares at a shekel (25 cents) per share, which represents a 25% discount over its market price Sunday morning of 1.257 shekels per share. It brings his stake in the company to 12%. The company’s shares closed at 1.27 shekels Sunday, up 1.2% on the day. A week ago, Somoto announced that it had acquired the Israeli digital firm TerserTude for 14 million shekels. Sultan has a wide range of Israeli investments and is controlling shareholder of the Modi’in Energy oil and gas firm, which has experienced a number of failures and saw its share price plummet. (Shelly Appelberg)

Enlight-Migdal joint venture eyeing Central European wind power project 

The Enlight Energy and Migdal joint venture is in negotiations that would see it invest in a wind power project in Central Europe that is in an advanced stage of development. The joint venture, which is owned 51% by Enlight and 49% by Migdal, is looking to acquire 90% of the unnamed project, which is expected to cost 63 million euros (about $69 million), including the cost of license fees. Enlight has also started initial talks on financing for its share of the projects the joint venture will be investing in. It expects 70% of its funds to come from banks, with the remaining 30% to be self-financed. This assumes the total amounts involved will be around 17 million euros. Enlight and Migdal announced their renewable energy joint venture last month, in the wake of the Paris conference on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. (Yoram Gabison) 

TASE closes moderately lower despite last week’s sharp drops overseas

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s leading indexes slumped moderately in trading Sunday, but this followed much steeper drops in share prices overseas at the end of last week. The benchmark Tel Aviv-25 index declined by 0.46% to 1,487.15 points for the day, while the broader Tel Aviv-100 index slumped by 0.52% to 1,277.70 points. The Biomed index dropped 0.71% after declining last week by 10.1%. The Tel-Bond 20, 40 and 60 corporate bond indexes fell by 0.09%. Bucking the trend was Electra Real Estate, whose stock rose by 3.7% to 7.14 shekels ($1.82), following news of the sale of a residential project and land in India at a market value of about 134 million shekels. The losers on the day included Sodastream International, the carbonated drink equipment maker, whose stock lost 8.3%, closing at 52.49 shekels. Shares in drugmaker Mylan declined by 3.43%, closing at 197.00 shekels.(Ruti Levy)