Pelephone Acquires Mobile Firm Wecom for 265 Million Shekels

Pelephone, a subsidiary of Bezeq, announced on Tuesday evening its acquisition of the mobile company Wecom for 265 million shekels. The negotiations were initially reported in early June by Calcalist. Currently, the parties have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding, with the purchase being made from Yariv Lerner, the ClearMark fund, and other partners in Wecom.

Pelephone expects that the completion of the deal and the resulting synergies in operational costs, network expenses, and frequency fees will contribute approximately 50 million shekels in short-term gains and 100 million shekels in the long term to the group’s financial results. This acquisition serves as a consolation for Pelephone after its previous bid of 2.1 billion shekels for the larger Hot Mobile was rejected. Hot Mobile declined to sell to Pelephone due to regulatory uncertainties and instead accepted a 1.8 billion shekel offer from Delek Retail.