El Al Must Offer Shares in Exchange for State Bailout

YERUSHALAYIM
Parked El Al airplanes at the Ben Gurion International Airport. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

The Finance Ministry informed El Al Sunday that if the struggling airline is to receive financial aid from the state, it must raise millions of shekels worth of stock market shares by September 10.

Bloomberg reported that El Al hopes to raise at least NIS 505 million ($150 million) worth of shares in exchange for a bank loan of hundreds of millions of shekels guaranteed by the state.

The government would buy a little less than NIS 265 million ($79 million) worth of El Al’s shares, and either sell them or transfer them within two years.

El Al has been in a precarious financial state since March, when it paused all passenger flights due to coronavirus. With the exception of yeshivah and seminary students, Israel has banned tourists through October, as it struggles to contain soaring coronavirus cases.

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