BATM said it has agreed to a deal worth about $37 million that will see it sell three non-core businesses and add investor Haim Dor as a significant shareholder. The package includes about $13.3 million for the assets being sold and about $23.3 million for Dor’s purchase of BATM shares.
Dor will buy London-listed BATM shares at 18.15 pence each, a 33% premium to the stock’s average price over the 30 days before the deal. After completion, he is expected to hold about 22% of the company’s share capital and voting rights. The businesses being sold are a medical diagnostics operation in Italy, a pharmacy and medical-distribution network in Moldova, and an intellectual-property company in the medical diagnostics field in Cyprus.
The transaction is part of BATM’s wider effort to reduce activities outside its core business. After it closes, the group is expected to be left with just one remaining non-core activity, an environmental monitoring company in Hungary, which BATM expects to sell in the near future.
BATM chairman Gil Sharon, formerly chairman of Bezeq and now also chairman of the Fiber Optic project, said the deal marks the end of the first stage of the company’s strategic plan, in which it has sold most of its non-core companies. He said the next stage will focus on growth through targeted R&D investment, expansion of sales and distribution channels abroad, and selective acquisitions. Sharon added that after the deal, the company will have enough cash to support the second stage, calling it “the beginning of a new path, based on capabilities built over many years.” BATM, led by Moti Nagar, now focuses on secure communications networks, quantum encryption and cyber. The company said the proceeds will fund growth, R&D, commercial activity and possible strategic acquisitions in its core areas. The deal still needs shareholder approval and customary regulatory clearances.
