Keren Noy acquires control of Alon Gas and will receive 4% of the holding in the Tamar gas reservoir
Keren Noy acquires control of Alon Gas and will receive 4% of the holding in the Tamar gas reservoir
At the end of April 2022, the Investment Infrastructure Investment Fund signed an agreement to purchase approximately 80% of the controlling shares in Alon Gas from the Alon Fuel Group (the Alon Fuel Company). According to the agreement, Keren Noy will pay NIS 400 million for the shares purchased, which is 25% higher than their value in the last trading week.
Completion of the transaction is subject to the approval of the Petroleum Commissioner of the Ministry of Energy, the approval of the Competition Commissioner and the approval of the bondholders of the Alon Fuel Group
Keren Noy currently owns 26% of the super royalties of the Crocodile and Shark natural gas reservoirs, which it purchased in 2020 from the Delek Group for NIS 318 million, so the fund’s minimal future holding in the Tamar reservoir should not create a problem in terms of approval by the Competition Authority.
Alon Gaz holds 95% of the shares in the Dor Gas Exploration partnership, which holds 4% of the shares in the Tamar gas reservoir. The rest of the partnership’s shares are held by Dor Alon.
Alon Gaz is the last remnant of the Alon Group, which ran into difficulties in 2015 following the collapse of the mega-marketing chain that controlled it. The debt of the Alon Group amounted to approximately NIS 2 billion, of which approximately NIS 300 million to Bank Hapoalim and approximately NIS 1.7 billion to institutional entities that held the Company’s private bonds.
The debt to Bank Hapoalim and part of the debt to the bondholders has been repaid over the years. The Alon Group even signed a debt settlement with the bondholders based on a new raising of capital, but in 2017 the group’s issuance on the stock exchange failed and it passed into the ownership of institutional creditors.
The Dalon Group subsequently repaid part of its obligations to the bondholders by realizing its holdings in various companies (Delek US, the operator company and the Dor Alon gas station company), leaving the debt to the group’s bondholders at NIS 764 million. Sale of Alon Gaz to the fund Investment in ornamental infrastructure is expected to reduce this debt.