Discount Investment Corporation (TASE: DISI) has reported that it has failed in its bid to acquire the controlling interest in European wireless company BITE which operates in Lithuania and Latvia.
BITE has one million customers and its acquisition price is likely to exceed €400 million. However, sources close to IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH) said that Discount Investment did not intend to abandon its goal of expanding its cellular activity and operating outside of Israel, and would now consider other options for cellular activity overseas.
IDB is looking for investments in cellular companies with substantial growth potential located in developing countries. It is currently looking at various options in Eastern Europe. Last May, Discount Investment subsidiary Cellcom Israel Ltd. pulled out of a bid for the recently privatized Belgrade-based cellular operator Mobi 63. Cellcom cancelled its bid after failing to meet one of the basic conditions of the tender - a minimum of three million subscribers. IDB chairman and CEO Nochi Dankner previously stated that he intended to look overseas for growth engines for Cellcom, now that the market for new subscribers in Israel has been all but exhausted.
Israel’s cellular market is competitive and it is not conducive to development, so if Discount Investment wants to leverage its know-how and financial strength, it will have to look overseas for opportunities to either set up new companies or upgrade existing ones in countries that have an underdeveloped cellular market.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on January 22, 2007
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007