Jerusalem, Israel, June 5, 2006--Carmel Holdings, the owner of carpet manufacturing company Carmel Carpets, has acquired 50.1% of Turkish carpet manufacturer Atlas Carpets Weaving Ind. Inc., from the Cetinkaya family for $9 million.
Of this sum, $2 million will be paid immediately with the balance to be paid through the end of 2007.
Carmel Holdings CEO and controlling shareholder Ofer Eitani said, “Atlas Carpets is one of the ten largest carpet manufacturers worldwide. This acquisition will enable us to move forward our plan to become a dominant force on the global carpet market.”
Carmel Holdings manager and shareholder Aviv Eitani added that the company had also acquired an 80-dunam (20-acre) lot and 20,000 sq.m. of industrial properties which house one of Atlas’s factories. “The plant is valued at $18 million, but it would cost $40 million to build a plant like this, and in Israel this figure would be even higher because of real estate prices,” he said.
Eitani said the expansion to Turkey would not be at the expense of manufacturing activities in Israel. Carmel Carpets had domestic sales of NIS 60 million in 2005 and a further NIS 25 million in exports. He said that while demand for exports was much higher, the company’s manufacturing capacity was not large enough to take on any more.
Carmel Holdings is looking for merger and acquisition targets in Europe, and is examining possible deals in Turkey and Ukraine. It will use the NIS 50 million raised by a bond issue in December 2005 to finance any such acquisition. The issue was delayed by the The Israel Securities Authority following statements by company managers who referred to figures for future company activities that did not appear in its prospectus.
