Radioactive waste company plans IPO



 

Environmental Energy Resources Ltd., the Ramat Gan-based municipal waste company, plans to sell shares to the public by the end of 2008 at a company valuation of about $500 million.

The company uses technology that reduces waste to 4 percent of its original volume. The process transforms waste into black glass that looks like volcanic rock and can be used as a base for asphalt roads.

"The technology is pure, clean and better than any other standard in the world," chairman Itschak Shrem, whose holding company, Shrem Fudim Kelner Technologies Ltd., owns 41% of EER, said in a phone interview.

The company is negotiating contracts with Ukraine to clean up waste in Chernobyl and with the Chinese government to help deal with medical waste before the 2008 Olympics, Shrem said.

The company is examining the possibility of increasing its valuation by splitting into two units, Shrem said. One, dealing primarily with municipal waste, would be US-based and sell shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The second would deal with hazardous and medical waste. It would be based in Europe and trade on the London Stock Exchange.

The company's waste-reducing technology also gives off steam as a by-product that can then be channeled and sold as an energy source, Shrem said.

Other investors in EER include Urdan Industries Ltd., an Israeli steel and metal product company, and the South Korean investment firm EBN.

The technology for the disposal of low- and medium-level radioactive waste will be demonstrated for the first time on Thursday at the new facility site in Ibillin, near Karmiel, to delegations from Russia, Japan, Korea and the US. Israeli government officials will also be present at the demonstration.

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