Sources inform ''Globes'' that one of the companies interested in acquiring control of Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. (TASE: CLIS) from Nochi Dankner's IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) is Hong Kong-based Hang Lung Group Ltd. (HKSE: 0010).
IDB declined to comment on the report.
Hang Lung Group is engaged in real estate, high tech, and telecommunications. Ronnie Chan is the chairman of the company and its subsidiary Hang Lung Properties Ltd. (HKSE: 101), and he co-founded Morningstar Group. He attended President Shimon Peres's President's Conference.
On Thursday, IDB announced that it had received several offers for half of its 55% stake Clal Insurance, and that one or more offers may come in early this week. It also notified the court that earlier talks with the private equity fund Advent to acquire the stake in Clal Insurance at a company value of NIS 4.5 billion did not result in a deal.
Market sources have mentioned US private equity fund KKR LP (NYSE: KKR), American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) (which already has a presence in Israel), and AXA Group SA (Euronext: CS) as other potential buyers.
Market sources believe that some of the offers for Clal Insurance, which are all non-binding at this stage, are at a company value of around NIS 4.2 billion, compared with its market cap of NIS 3.6 billion. If IDB can sell the shares at this value, it will reflect a 23% premium on Clal Insurance's market cap, compared with 15% premium that Shlomo Eliahu paid for Migdal Insurance and Financial Holdings Ltd. (TASE: MGDL) in 2012.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 21, 2013
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