Hedge fund manager snaps up Israeli bourse stake
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and his Israeli-born wife Neri Oxman have agreed to buy an equity stake of about 4.9% in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), the Israeli bourse said on Wednesday.
The purchase was part of the TASE’s secondary offering of 18.5% of its shares, in which it sold 17.2-million shares at 20.60 shekels per share for 353.4million shekels ($95m).
The TASE said net proceeds amounted to 242-million shekels after deducting placing commissions and other offering expenses.
The TASE said it intends to use the funds for investment in its technology infrastructure. The offering is expected to close on January 25, it noted.
The transaction, the TASE said, drew interest from investors across Israel, the US, Europe and Australia, “reflecting a strong vote of confidence in both the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Israeli economy at large”.
But it only mentioned Ackman and Oxman by name as those who had invested. Neither has commented yet publicly on taking a TASE stake.
Ackman was a critic of Claudine Gay, who resigned as president of Harvard University earlier in January amid allegations of plagiarism and a backlash over her congressional testimony about anti-Semitism on campus. Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital and who has supported Israel in its war in Gaza, is pressing forward with his efforts to reshape the Ivy League school’s governance by backing a bid by four dissident alumni to join its board of overseers.
Jefferies served as sole global placement co-ordinator with Leader Capital Markets acting as local placement co-ordinator for Israel.