The sale awaits approval from the Minister of Communications.
Shares in Partner Communications (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR; LSE:PCCD) fell 5.5% in the last two trading sessions for no apparent reason. Now Elron Electronic Industries (Nasdaq: ELRN; TASE: ELRN) has supplied an explanation, by announcing that it is selling its stake in the company at a discount of 20% on the price at which the shares stood at the beginning of the week..
Elron said it had reached agreement with several Israeli institutional investors to sell all its shares in Partner for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $40 million. Elron currently holds 3,906,085 Partner shares, all of which are currently restricted under Partner's license from the Israel Minister of Communications. Accordingly, any sale of these restricted shares will be subject to the approval of the Minister of Communications.
If the sale is completed, Elron will realize a net (after tax) gain of approximately $16 million under US generally accepted accounting principles, and approximately $23 million under Israeli generally accepted accounting principles.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 7, 2006
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