Finance officials may block Hanson sale to Dankner

Finance officials may block Hanson sale to Dankner
02 December 2009


Nochi Dankner may not be able to buy the building materials giant Hanson Israel after all.

The IDB group, which is controlled by Dankner and the Livnat family, sought to buy Hanson for NIS 450 million. Hanson is Israel’s second-biggest source of building materials. In an official opinion, Udi Nissan - the budget director at the Finance Ministry - wrote to Antitrust Commissioner Ronit Kan that the acquisition could be anticompetitive.

Allowing IDB, which owns a number of construction and infrastructure companies as well as the Nesher cement works, to buy Hanson would contravene government policy of intensifying competition in the building input sector, Nissan explains.

Real estate sector sources project that Kan, who has been studying the proposed acquisition for four months, will release her decision within days.

IDB signed an agreement to buy Hanson through group company Mashav in July. The seller is Heidelberg Cement of Germany. Hanson owns three quarries, 29 cement plants and two asphalt production plants. It has 560 workers and is believed to have turnover of about NIS 950 million a year. (Source: www.haaretz.com)

Published under Cement News