Emblaze in talks to sell Formula stake

Emblaze in talks to sell Formula stake today notified the London Stock Exchange that it is in "advanced negotiations for the sale of its holdings in Formula Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: FORTY; TASE: FORT)." The company did not disclose the name of the other party.

It's exactly four years since the last time headlines appeared on the business pages about the transfer of control in computing group Formula Systems. Four years have passed, and it seems as though nothing has changed, except for one thing: Dan Goldstein, the name that more than any other was associated with the group, is no longer there, after he sold his stake to the Emblaze group and left the company he founded, after 25 years of activity.

Now the company is about to change hands again. In the next few days, Emblaze is expected on the sale of the controlling interest, 49% of the shares in Formula, to Polish computing services provider Asseco Group for $140 million (about NIS 530 million), representing a 52% premium on the share's closing price yesterday.

The price for the company in the deal is 33% higher than the price Emblaze paid to buy control from Goldstein in 2006. Altogether, Emblaze has expended some $97 million on buying Formula shares over the years.

Formula today is far from the scope of the computing group's activity at the beginning of the decade. Today, the company, headed by Guy Bernstein, has one main holding: just over 50% of computing services company Matrix IT Ltd. (TASE:MTRX), traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a market cap of NIS 1.16 billion.