Frutarom raised approximately US$71 million by listing 10,000,000 global depositary receipts on the Exchange’s Main Market. The company has been listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since 1996. Its London listing is the company’s first outside of Israel.
Ori Yehudai, President and Chief Executive Officer of Frutarom, said:
“We are delighted with the success of our offering on the London Stock Exchange. We welcome the leading global institutions that have just joined the ranks of Frutarom's investors and look forward to expanding our shareholder base further. This is a significant strategic step for Frutarom that enables us to raise capital for future strategic acquisitions that will support our above-industry growth.”
Frutarom’s listing brings the total number of Israeli companies traded on the Main Market and AIM - the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller, growing companies - to thirteen. In 2004, US$ 4.0 billion of Israeli securities were traded on the Exchange’s markets.
Martin Graham, the Exchange’s Director of Market Services, said:
“We are delighted to welcome Frutarom to the Main Market, where it benefits from access to the largest pool of international capital in the world, and exposure to world-leading regulatory and corporate governance standards. The fact that Frutarom’s share issue was four times over-subscribed highlights the appetite institutional investors have for Israeli companies listing in London.”
At the end of 2004, a total of 2837 companies were listed on the London Stock Exchange. Of these 1861 companies were on the Main Market, including 351 international companies and 1021 were on AIM, including 116 international companies.
In 2004 the London Stock Exchange attracted a total of 293 IPOs to the Main Market and AIM, accounting for 79 per cent of all IPOs in Western Europe.
Frutarom were advised by Morgan Stanley and UBS Investment Bank.
