{"id":8659,"date":"2020-09-17T23:49:52","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T04:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=8659"},"modified":"2020-09-17T23:51:06","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T04:51:06","slug":"cash-strapped-el-al-israel-airlines-raises-148-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=8659","title":{"rendered":"Cash-Strapped El Al Israel Airlines Raises $148 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TEL AVIV, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Cash-strapped El Al Israel Airlines raised $148 million in a government-mandated share offering on Wednesday that will enable it to receive a state bailout package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a regulatory filing in Tel Aviv, Israel’s flag carrier said it sold 753.35 million new shares at 0.671 shekels ($0.1963) each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its stock earlier had closed 5.6% higher at 0.774 shekel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demand reached 654 million shekels while El Al accepted 505 million shekels ($148 million) worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Al did not give further details of the offering which took the total number of shares outstanding to above 1.2 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Israeli media reported that Eli Rozenberg had obtained a controlling stake via the offering, with 44.9% of the airline’s shares. He is the son of American businessman Kenny Rozenberg, CEO of New York-based nursing home chain Centers Health Care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rozenberg in July had offered to funnel $75 million into the airline in return for a 44.99% stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An El Al spokesman said he could not immediately confirm the reports about Rozenberg’s bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspapers said the state’s overall stake would now be as much as 15.5%, while the current controlling shareholder – Knafaim Holdings – would see its stake fall to about 15%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel’s Finance Ministry said it paid $34 million for its shares and that although it pledged a $150 million safety net, it was barely needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The results of the offering express investors’ trust in the company’s business plan and in state aid,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Al has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak and the government has for months offered to intervene to help it avoid bankruptcy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That has included mandating a share offering and steep spending reductions to receive a $250 million loan that will be 75% backed by the government and used partly to pay back customers whose flights were cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airline has reported losses for two years running, racked up debt to renew its fleet, and suspended flights when Israel closed its borders and furloughed most of its employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

($1 = 3.4185 shekels) (Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Steven Scheer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cash-strapped El Al Israel Airlines raised $148 million in a government-mandated share offering on Wednesday that will enable it to receive a state bailout package.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10174,797,89,5637,8222,10701,10700,5992,5670,7929,2203,5500,4957,5676,10169,10176,1397,10173,10195,10171,868,10182,1103],"tags":[420,118,116,12494,160,10936,142,3945,8834,988,11533,3426,5254,1925,2234,9166,1024,2240,8596,10030,9240,3796,2493,11086,65,12487,6882,10869,3031,2761,2152,1483,482,11347,688,5805,807,1170,8468,64,1267,12488,12491,3615,11343,1067,7424,2037,422,412,12490,12489,6583,10162,5955,5970,1485,12484,4305,12492,4078,8882,3006,5505,4240,7597,1288,2547,2268,2275,12485,12486,1845,2855,1634,12493,8984,2376,1691,1658,4376],"class_list":["post-8659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-airline","category-airline-news","category-aviation-news","category-business-news","category-consumer-news","category-coronavirus","category-covid-19","category-economic-news","category-economy-news","category-european-news","category-finance-news","category-frequent-flyer-news","category-global-politics","category-international-news","category-news","category-stock-news-2","category-stock-news","category-stockairline","category-transport","category-transportation","category-transportation-news","category-travel","category-travel-news","tag-airline","tag-airlines","tag-american","tag-andrew-cawthorne","tag-aviation","tag-bailout","tag-bankruptcy","tag-based","tag-borders","tag-business","tag-businessman","tag-cancelled","tag-care","tag-carrier","tag-cash","tag-centers","tag-ceo","tag-chain","tag-controlling","tag-coronavirus","tag-current","tag-customers","tag-demand","tag-editing","tag-el-al","tag-eli-rozenberg","tag-employees","tag-enable","tag-filing","tag-finance","tag-flag","tag-fleet","tag-flights","tag-furloughed","tag-government","tag-health","tag-holdings","tag-home","tag-intervene","tag-israel","tag-israeli","tag-kenny-rozenberg","tag-knafaim","tag-loan","tag-mandated","tag-media","tag-millions","tag-ministry","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-newspapers","tag-nursing","tag-offering","tag-outbreak","tag-outstanding","tag-package","tag-plan","tag-raised","tag-raises","tag-rami-ayyub","tag-receive","tag-reductions","tag-regulatory","tag-renew","tag-reported","tag-reporting","tag-reuters","tag-share","tag-shareholder","tag-shares","tag-shekels","tag-son","tag-spending","tag-stake","tag-state","tag-steven-scheer","tag-strapped","tag-tel-aviv","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-via"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8661,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8659\/revisions\/8661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}