Leading Chinese investment company Fosun Group Sunday signed an agreement with the shareholders of Ahava to fully acquire the Israeli Dead Sea cosmetics company for 290 million NIS (about 77 million U.S. dollars).
Fosun Vice Chairman and CEO Liang Xinjun and Gaon Holdings CEO Guy Regev signed the deal on Sunday afternoon at Jerusalem's David Citadel Hotel, after months of intense negotiations. The signing ceremony was also witnessed by Israeli officials.
Under the agreement, Fosun will acquire the holdings from all Ahava's shareholders including Gaon Holdings, Livnat family, Shamrock Israel Growth Fund Advisors, Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem, and Kibbutz Kalia.
Liang said he was delighted to have succeeded in acquiring "such a famous, strong and successful brand as Ahava under this mutually beneficial agreement." He said Fosun will endeavor to extend the success of Ahava to China and other countries.
Dror Barzeli, chairman of Ahava's board, hailed the acquisition in an interview with Xinhua before the signing ceremony.
"This is a great acquisition, it's a really strategic acquisition. Definitely there should be a lot of synergy between the new share holders of Fosun group and Ahava. That's exactly the perfect partner and the perfect share holder which really will help us to expand our international activity to China," he said.
Barzeli told Xinhua that Ahava's yearly turnover amounts to 50 million dollars, of which the U.S. and European markets contribute 20 million dollars and 15 million dollars separately.
"Definitely China should be a much bigger market for us based on our great portfolio of nature products and our good relationship with the Chinese consumers," he said.
Barzeli said Ahava, which has subsidiaries in Germany and the United States, is looking forward to having a subsidiary in China as well, in order to be closer to Chinese consumers.
The transaction, which will be completed within six months, is the latest of a number of successful acquisitions of Israeli companies by Chinese investors in the past few years.
In early 2015, China's Bright Food purchased a 77-percent controlling interest in Israel's largest food company Tnuva for 2.5 billion dollars.
