Less than three months after a receiver was appointed for businessman Eliezer Fishman's shares in Ten Petroleum Company Ltd. (TASE: TNPT.B1) at the request of creditor banks following Fishman's inability to pay his debts, it appears that several prominent concerns in the local capital market have expressed interest in buying the shares, including Apax Partners, Sky Fund, and Shapir Civil and Marine Engineering Ltd..
Ten has been up for sale for a long time. Some of these parties took an interest in acquiring it before the receiver entered the picture in an attempt to obtain a bargain price because of Fishman's financial difficulties. The change that has occurred in the process, which is being managed mainly by Advocates Pinhas Rubin and Yaron Elhawi from the Gornitzky & Co. law firm, is liable to lead them the potential buyers to withdraw from the deal.
Rubin and Elhawi were appointed as receivers for most of Fishman's Ten shares in late September 2016 as part of the foreclosure of Bank Hapoalim's liens on shares in Fishman's companies.
Shortly afterward, Adv. Assaf Englard was appointed a receiver for 9% of Ten's shares held by Fishman at the request of another creditor of Fishman.
All of Fishman's 91% stake in Ten is encumbered in favor of the banks. Following the appointment of a receiver, Excellence Investments Ltd. (TASE: EXCE), which has a 5% stake in Ten through its provident fund, sought to exercise its put option with Fishman, who notified Excellence that it could not exercise this option "in view of the ongoing court proceedings."
Up for sale for a long time
Like previous Ten controlling shareholders Roni Biram and Gil Deutsch, Excellence acquired its stake in Ten ahead of the company's IPO, and received an option to sell its holdings to Fishman as part of the deal (the agreement was revised in 2010).
Biram and Deutsch decided to sell their Ten stakes of 4.5% each to Fishman last May, and received a total of NIS 26 million.
Managed by CEO Eran Vaknin, Ten runs 56 gas stations and 20 convenience stores. It also markets fuel products directly to various commercial and business customers in the transportation, contracting, and industrial sectors, and sells to wholesalers.
The company has been up for sale for a long time, but none of the deals for its sale at a company value of NIS 250 million went through. Parties previously interested in acquiring Ten when it was controlled by Fishman included the Neumann family, which owns Alon Israel Oil Company Ltd., and Eli Elezra through Elezra Holdings Ltd. (TASE:ALZR.B1).
Ten has two bond series totaling NIS 140 million rated BBB plus, with yields of 3-4%. The company's revenue fell 15.5% to NIS 556 million in the first nine months of the year as a result of the decline in oil prices, but its gross profit rose 11% to NIS 141 million, supported by a rise in the quantity of fuel sold and a reduction in inventory losses.
This improvement helped Ten's operating profit rise 24.5% to NIS 33 million in the period, while earning a NIS 20 million net profit, compared with a NIS 3 million loss in the corresponding period last year.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 15, 2016
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