Sources inform ''Globes'' that venture capital fund Medica Venture Partners recently invested an estimated $5 million in Lumenis (OTCBB:LUME.PK). The 75% controlling interest in the company was sold last October to a group of investors headed by Aharon and Shlomo Dovrat, Harel Beit-On, Avi Zeevi, and Ofer Hi Tech Ltd., managed by Ehud Angel and Yoav Dopppelt. The group paid $120 million for its stake at a company value of $160 million.
Medica, which is managed by Ehud Geller and Batsheva Elran, manages three funds totaling $200 million. It specializes in investment in life science and medical device companies and it is considered one of the leading funds in the sector. Medica invests in both Israeli and foreign companies, and it recently held the third closing on $125 million of a its third fund Poalim Medica, which it jointly manages with Poalim Capital Markets - Investment Bank Ltd..
Sources close to Lumenis told “Globes” that Medica could contribute to the company’s success through its experience in the medical device industry.
Beit-On, Aharon and Shlomo Dovrat made their investment in Lumenis through their private equity fund, D-Partners. Beit-On, who was later appointed chairman, was formerly chairman and CEO at Technomatix, which was sold to US enterprise software company UGS Corp. for $230 million, and chairman of ECtel (Nasdaq: ECTX), where he oversaw the company’s recovery program and its return to profitability last year.
The investment group reached an arrangement with Lumenis’ creditor bank, for the partial write down of the company’s debt and the lowering of the interest charges. As first reported by “Globes,” the bank will write down $50 million from Lumenis’s debt. Additionally, the debt is likely to be reduced within two years by $125 million to $75 million, as a result of the repayment of part of the debt and partially by the bank’s write down. The arrangement will significantly reduce Lumenis’s financing costs.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 14, 2007
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