One of the largest companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) is about to be delisted. Opko Health (TASE: OPK; NASDAQ: OPK), headed by former Teva chairman Phillip Frost, announced yesterday that it intended to cease being dual-listed and that it would be traded on Nasdaq only. The company, which has a NIS 6 billion market cap and is on the Tel Aviv 35 list, supplied no explanation for the move.
Opko Health is considered a successful example of dual listing by a US company in Tel Aviv. It listed on the TASE as part of the acquisition of Israeli company Prolor Biotech in 2013 for $480 million in a share deal, and immediately entered the main indices. In the following two years, its share price was stable and then rose. Together with Perrigo, Opko was the example that persuaded the TASE to court other US biotech companies and encourage them to dual-list in Tel Aviv.
That move was a great failure, as most of the companies concerned lost 80-90% of their value within a short time, and in the past year most of them have been delisted (apart from BioTime (BTX), whose share price continues to be fairly stable and which has so far not announced any intention to delist). Even as these companies came and went, however, it seemed that Opko was a breed apart and more deeply rooted in the local stock market. Now, it too is leaving.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 10, 2018
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