Paz sells its holdings in Ashdod Oil Refinery for 75 million shekels

The company Paz is selling all of its holdings in the Ashdod Oil Refinery, which constitute 4.9% of the company's shares. Calcalist has learned that the shares are being sold through the brokerage firm Leader and via stock exchange trading, in exchange for approximately 75 million shekels.

The Ashdod Oil Refinery stock is surging by more than 9% on the stock exchange and is seeing a high trading volume against the backdrop of the share distribution. The sale is taking place after Shapir Engineering did not exercise an option it held, which expired last week, to purchase Paz's holdings in the company.

Until 2023, the refinery was fully owned by Paz. The split process was intended to remove a significant debt burden of the refinery from Paz, while simultaneously focusing it on its core areas: fuel and food retail. Most of the shares were distributed at that time as a dividend in kind to Paz shareholders, and 5% of them remained in its hands due to an option granted to Shapir Engineering to purchase them until last week.

This was part of an attempt by Shapir to take control of the refinery. This attempt suffered a blow last month when the Concentration Committee decided to recommend to the Competition Authority and the government not to grant Shapir a control permit for the refinery due to concentration considerations. Shapir decided to waive the option to purchase Paz's shares in the refinery, but it has another option to purchase 65% of the refinery's shares through an allocation within two years. Before that, it will need to obtain regulatory permits.