NEW YORK-Cellcom Israel Ltd., which has about 1 million customers, reportedly is planning to
go public with a stock sale in the United States.
Shares of many Israel-based companies closed higher Jan. 3,
following publication that morning of a local newspaper report of Cellcom’s planned initial public offering. However,
as of Jan. 7, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had not posted any IPO registration filings by
Cellcom.
Cellcom is a consortium comprised of BellSouth Corp., Brazil’s Safra banking family and two Israeli-
based companies, Discount Investments and PEC Israel Economic Corp.
Cellcom’s major competitor is Pelephone,
a joint venture between Bezeq Israel Telecom and Motorola Inc. Pelephone also has about 1 million customers.
A
third competitor, Partner Communications Ltd., the only Global System for Mobile communications carrier in the
country, is scheduled for a full-scale commercial service launch sometime this month. Commercial trials began in
October.
Encouraged by initial consumer response, Partner’s shareholders, the largest of which is Hong Kong-based
Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., have said publicly they would consider taking the company public at an undetermined future
time.
Partner has said its goal is to sign up 400,000 customers, or 20 percent of the Israeli wireless market, by the
end of this year.
