Amsterdam, August 2, 2012 – Kardan N.V. (“Kardan” or “the Company”), active in Real Estate, Water Infrastructure and Financial Services in emerging markets, announces that its water infrastructure subsidiary Tahal has received an extension of deadlines for its Pump Storage Project (“the Project”). This is pursuant to the announcement made by Kardan on May 26, 2009, in which the Company announced that an 81% subsidiary of Tahal (Tahal Water Energy Ltd.) was granted a conditional licence to build an electricity generating facility (“the Plant”), providing up to 300 Megawatt of electricity to the Israel Electric Company, conditional to achieving certain milestones.

Yesterday, Tahal was informed by the Israeli public services authority that the deadline to meet several milestones, includingthe arrangement of the funding (“Financial Closing”), has been extended until June 24, 2013 (“the Extension Notice”). The funding is expected to be arranged in the form of an Equity contribution and Project Finance by external parties.
The Extension Notice has been approved by the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Water.

It is mentioned in the Extension Notice that so far, Tahal has met the benchmarks stipulated in the conditional license, and has also presented statutory, constructive and financial progress during the months passed from the issuance of the conditional license, including confirmation about the production of the Project's plan and the receipt of a positive connection survey determining that it possible to connect the power plant to the national grid. It is also mentioned that the reason for the delay of the Financial Closing derives from delays in the construct procedures which are not in Tahal’s control and that Tahal took all the reasonable steps to prevent those delays.

The Plant will use the so called Pump Storage technique, which enables a better utilization and more effective management of the electrical system. The electricity is generated from energy created by falling water: water available in an upper reservoir falls down into a lower reservoir, creating energy during peak hours of electricity demand when electricity tariff is high. The water in the upper reservoir is brought there by pumping it from the lower reservoir during off-peak hours when demand and electricity tariff are much lower.

Since the initial announcement in 2009, it is now expected that the total investment to construct the Plant amounts to approximately USD 410 million (approximately EUR 310 million) and that it will take approximately four to five years to complete the construction as of the start.