Pelephone, Delek Israel up bids for Hot Mobile

The battle for mobile telephony company Hot Mobile is entering its final phase. After rival company Pelephone (a subsidiary of Bezeq) filed an improved offer yesterday evening, this morning Delek Israel announced that it had made a non-binding offer to buy all the shares in Hot Mobile at a valuation of NIS 1.8 billion.

Like Pelephone, Delek Israel set a deadline of this Thursday, January 22, for Hot Mobile’s parent company Altice to sign an agreement. Delek Israel states that acquiring Hot Mobile will enable it to expand and create a substantial additional consumer activity that can be integrated its existing businesses.

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Delek Israel is 39.6% owned by Lahav LR Real Estate (TASE: LAHAV). The other shareholders are Uri Mantzur and Delek Group (through Delek Petroleum). As mentioned, its offer comes after Pelephone raised its offer for Hot Mobile to NIS 2.3 billion yesterday.

Other bidders for Hot Mobile are a group led by former Bezeq chairperson Gil Sharon that includes several financial institutions, and rival mobile telephony companies Cellcom and Partner, which have submitted offers for Hot Mobile’s business customers only.

Last April, it was reported that Hot’s owner (through Altice) Patrick Drahi was looking for a buyer to pay €2 billion for the entire Hot group, but that separate offers for one of its arms – mobile telephony, Internet, and television – would be considered.

In November, Pelephone announced that it had submitted a non-binding letter of intent to buy Hot Mobile, and shortly afterwards it signed a non-binding MOU on the matter. Pelephone said that it believed that such a merger would not harm competition. The sides entered into negotiations, but no binding agreement was signed between them within the 60-day period set for the negotiations to be completed.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on January 19, 2026.

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