Press releases 2005

The London Stock Exchange today welcomed Frutarom Industries Ltd, an Israeli global flavours and fine ingredients company, to its Main Market.

Frutarom raised approximately US$71 million by listing 10,000,000 global depositary receipts on the Exchange’s Main Market.  The company has been listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since 1996. Its London listing is the company’s first outside of Israel.

Ori Yehudai, President and Chief Executive Officer of Frutarom, said:

“We are delighted with the success of our offering on the London Stock Exchange. We welcome the leading global institutions that have just joined the ranks of Frutarom's investors and look forward to expanding our shareholder base further. This is a significant strategic step for Frutarom that enables us to raise capital for future strategic acquisitions that will support our above-industry growth.”

Frutarom’s listing brings the total number of Israeli companies traded on the Main Market and AIM - the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller, growing companies - to thirteen.  In 2004, US$ 4.0 billion of Israeli securities were traded on the Exchange’s markets.

Martin Graham, the Exchange’s Director of Market Services, said:

“We are delighted to welcome Frutarom to the Main Market, where it benefits from access to the largest pool of international capital in the world, and exposure to world-leading regulatory and corporate governance standards.  The fact that Frutarom’s share issue was four times over-subscribed highlights the appetite institutional investors have for Israeli companies listing in London.”

At the end of 2004, a total of 2837 companies were listed on the London Stock Exchange.  Of these 1861 companies were on the Main Market, including 351 international companies and 1021 were on AIM, including 116 international companies.

In 2004 the London Stock Exchange attracted a total of 293 IPOs to the Main Market and AIM, accounting for 79 per cent of all IPOs in Western Europe. 

Frutarom were advised by Morgan Stanley and UBS Investment Bank.

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For further information, please contact:

Simon Wheeler                              Press Office      +44 (0)20 7797 4130                                                                                  newsroom@londonstockexchange.com
 

Notes to editors:

About the London Stock Exchange
 

The London Stock Exchange is one of the world’s foremost equity exchanges and a leading provider of services that facilitate the raising of capital and the trading of shares.

The London Stock Exchange is the most international equities exchange by trading in the world and Europe's largest pool of liquidity.  By the end of 2004, the market capitalisation of UK and international companies on the London Stock Exchange’s markets amounted to £3.5 trillion, with £4.7 trillion of equity business transacted over the year.

The London Stock Exchange is a Recognised Investment Exchange (RIE) under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and is supervised by the Financial Services Authority.

About Frutarom

Established in 1933, Frutarom is a multinational Flavour & Fragrance house creating, producing and marketing a large variety of high quality flavour and fragrance compounds and ingredients and other specialty products for customers in the Food, Beverage, Flavour, Fragrance, Pharmaceutical, Functional Food, Nutraceutical, Detergent and Cosmetic Industries. 

Frutarom has subsidiaries in Israel, the USA, the UK, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Brazil, plus marketing offices in France, Romania, India, and Hong Kong.