Thursday, June 14, 2012

Hong-Kong Billionaire Keeps Investing in Israel



Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought”

Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom #162, June 14, 2012



1. $22.5BN Sir Li Ka-Shing, the Hong Kong business magnate and the 9th wealthiest person in the world, made his 7th Israeli investment (through Horizons Ventures) in high tech start-ups - $2.3MN in Wibbitz (Globes Business Daily, June 6, 2012). The Cleveland-based Primus Capital acquired Israel's AOD for $90MN (Ma'ariv, June 7). The Palo Alto-based VMware acquired Israel's Wanova for $75MN (Globes, May 24). India's JAIN acquired additional 50% of Israel's NaanDan-JAIN for $35MN (Globes, May 15).



2. OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria in Jerusalem: "[Israel] has done exceptionally well in a very difficult world economy…. You recovered very fast to close to 5% in 2010 and 2011. [Israel is] going to be above 3% this year, closer to 4% next year. This is quite exceptional…. We are also looking at relatively tame inflation numbers. The unemployment rate is coming down. You just saw what happened with the United States last week. It went up. In Europe, unfortunately, it is still going up…. [Israel is] really moving in the right direction under very, very difficult circumstances (Globes, June 6).”



3. Abby Joseph Cohen, Goldman Sachs partner: "We're used to seeing China and India as future technological superpowers but that's a mistake. Those two countries don't have high tech in the Israeli and US sense…. Within the context of advanced technology, the US and Israel are top of the table and that's an excellent reason for optimism (Globes, June 14).”



4. The $3BN San Francisco-based TPG Growth investment fund made its 1st investment in Israel – acquiring iMDSoft for $80MN (Globes, June 13).



5. The Menlo Park-based Sequoia Partners participated in a $25MN round of private placement by Israel's Kaminario (Globes, June 11). The $12BN Len Blavatnik, Chairman of Access Industries (owner of Warner Music Group) led a $20MN round by Israel's GetTaxi (Globes, June 7). The Staten Island-based Advanced Publication – publisher of Vanity Fair, Vogue, New Yorker, etc. – led a $15MN round of private placement by Israel's Gigya, joined by Menlo Park-based Benchmark Capital, Menlo Park-based Mayfield Fund, Palo Alto-based DAG Ventures and the San Jose-based Adobe, Inc. (Globes, June 13). The Aurora, Illinois-based Rush Medical participated in a $5MN round by Israel's cCam (Globes, May 14).



Shabbat Shalom and have a pleasant weekend,



Yoram Ettinger, http://www.TheEttingerReport.Com

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