Sapiens International Corporation, an insurance business solutions provider, announced that effective March 6, 2003 its common shares will trade on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange in parallel to the Nasdaq National Market. Sapiens joins a group of approximately twenty other publicly traded companies whose shares have been approved for dual listing on the TASE.
The dual listing effectively reduces the Israeli capital gains tax from the sale of the company's shares by Israeli shareholders to 15 percent compared with the current 35 percent rate. This places Israeli shareholders of Sapiens within the same capital gains tax bracket as shareholders of Israeli companies whose shares are publicly traded.
Commenting on the dual listing, Ronit Harel-Ben-Ze'ev, an Senior vice president of the TASE, said: "We are delighted to have Sapiens listed for trading on the TASE and are gratified that Israeli investors will benefit from reduced taxation while hopefully stimulating increased trading volume in Sapiens's stock."
Itzick Sharir, President and CEO of Sapiens International, added: "We have received many inquiries from potential Israeli investors who have considered investing in Sapiens in the past but were discouraged by the 35 percent caital gains tax rate. The dual listing will enable these investors to benefit from a reduced tax rate, while hopefully broadening the pool of investors who actively trade in our shares.”
Sapiens is a global provider of Information Technology (IT) solutions that modernize business processes. Sapiens operates through wholly owned subsidiaries in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. The company has partnerships with market leaders such as IBM and EDS and its clients include AXA, Liverpool Victoria, Norwich Union, OneBeacon, Principal Financial, Prudential, Abbey National, Honda, International Paper, Panasonic UK among others. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
