Golan Telecom - which is owned by Cellcom - has submitted an application to acquire Exphon

Golan Telecom - which is owned by Cellcom - has submitted an application to acquire Exphon. The request was submitted to Adv. Amit Waldman, the director of the settlement appointed by the court regarding the dispute between Expon and Cellcom - in which Expon stopped paying the company for the use of their shared cellular network.
Golan Telecom's offer - according to the company - is the only one that now guarantees the repayment of debts to all creditors, except the controlling shareholder. According to Golan Telecom, the debts include: NIS 40 million to Mizrahi Bank, NIS 20 million in debt to all other creditors and the exposition of Expon's debts to Cellcom. About two months ago, Cellcom (+ 1.15% 1234) reported that Expon's debts to the company total more than NIS 1 billion. According to the company, if the deal is approved - the debt will be written off.
The company claims that its offer is the only one that will ensure that Exphon's employees and suppliers, which are owned by Hezi Bezalel, will not be harmed. The activity that Golan Telecom will acquire includes 300,000 Expon customers. According to Golan Telecom, which operates as an independent company under Cellcom, it will not change the contracts that the company's customers have signed with Expon and the terms will remain as they are.
Three months ago, the Canadian Reichman family, which owns the cellular operator Vidley Mobile, submitted an offer to acquire Expon at a price of NIS 330 million. The Reichman family's offer includes the purchase of all of Expon's mobile operations - however, this purchase will exclude Exphon from the cellular agreement with Cellcom since it already has a signed agreement with Pelephone. In recent weeks, Partner has also expressed interest in acquiring Expon.
The conflict between the two companies began following the deal in which Cellcom acquired Golan Telecom about a year ago. The three companies shared the cellular network under a joint agreement - and according to Exphon - as soon as Cellcom acquired Golan Telecom - it was the first to breach the contract between them, after the acquisition removed one company from the agreement. The result was a new division of expenses for the development of cellular networks. Exphon stopped paying for the joint network in October 2020 and accumulated a debt with Cellcom.
 In recent months, the dispute has been going on in court and Cellcom has expressed opposition to any Exphon sale deal as part of the latter's attempt to deal with its financial situation and return its debts to creditors - led by Cellcom.
According to Golan Telecom CEO Ilan Siegel, Golan Telecom's takeover bid is the best: "I am convinced that the creditors' meeting that will convene in the coming days will see the many advantages that this proposal has over other proposals, and I will support it."