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18:05Panel – M&A Outlook
In line with the global M&A activity, Israeli deal value slumped by 56% in the first half of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of $3.6bn was recorded across 41 deals, 21 fewer deals compared to the same period last year ($8.2bn and 62 deals) and the lowest first half-year value the country has seen since 1H12.
Foreign investment remains important, with 94% of the overall M&A value coming from inbound activity. The majority of investments were made by US-based companies, with 22 deals worth $3bn including the largest deal of the year so far, the acquisition of Moovit App Global Ltd by Intel Corporation for $900m. However, despite deal count remaining relatively consistent with 31 deals worth $3.4bn, the value has decreased by half compared with the first half of 2019 which saw 33 deals worth $6.7bn. The recent historic peace accord struck between Israel and the United Arab Emirates could provide new trade and M&A opportunities, but progress is likely to move slowly.
This panel will explore:
- The outlook for M&A in Israel in 2H20 and early 2021 – how will the region cope with potential future waves of COVID-19?
- Following a bumper 2019, private equity was hit hard in 1H20 – when will we see a rebound in activity?
- Sector outlook: which will survive, which will thrive, which may not recover?
- Cross-border challenges
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18:50Innovation through acquisition
The significant decline in M&A activity in the first half of the year globally reflected the ongoing uncertainty felt as the coronavirus pandemic spread, and countries locked down. However, the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sectors increased its relative share of global M&A from 15.4% in 1H19 to 22.4% in the first six months of 2020. This is not surprising as given that travel bans, and social distancing measures pushed many businesses to become virtual and consumers were driven online.
A likely impact of the Covid-19 crisis is the increasing adoption of digital technology across all industries and sectors as companies seek new ways to build resilience to future market uncertainties. M&A has become a key strategy for firms to gain access to innovation both through early stage investments as well as acquiring more mature tech firms.
In Israel, the technology sector has continued to dominate accounting for over half of all transactions so far this year, with 21 deals worth $2.3bn announced in 1H20; and is well-known for having the most start-ups per capital and huge numbers of tech entrepreneurs. The strength of Israel’s technology ecosystem and the availability of desirable tech assets and start-ups provides a reason for some optimism in the market.
An expert panel of speakers will discuss:
- Venture capital (VC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) opportunities in the Israeli market
- Deal origination and integration considerations
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Daniel Turgel is a partner in our global M&A and Corporate practice based in London and spends a substantial proportion of his time in Tel Aviv. He advises on public and private M&A, fundraisings, joint ventures and broader corporate matters, with extensive experience in high-profile and complex cross-border transactions.
Daniel advises across a range of sectors, including technology, media and telecoms, energy, pharmaceutical, real estate, financial sponsors and financial institutions.
Daniel is widely recognised as a leading practitioner on Israel-related matters, having been ranked by Chambers Global for several years. He spends a substantial proportion of his time in Tel Aviv and has advised on some of the largest and most complex matters in the Israeli market.

Doni Toledano is one of Israel’s most prominent corporate lawyers, described in the editorial as an “expert in mergers and acquisitions" who "combines very strong legal skills with business acumen and the ability to get things done.”
As head of the Corporate, Commercial and M&A department of the firm, he is hugely involved in the representation of both domestic and foreign corporations in a wide array of complex and high value transactions, including cross-border M&A transactions relating to both public and private targets, as well as debt and equity acquisition financing. In addition to leading large-scale M&As, Doni has significant expertise handling corporate and major regulatory matters, including in respect of transactions requiring regulatory clearance.
With a long and illustrious track record, Doni has advised on some of the largest and most complex transactions in Israel. Examples include representing Mobileye in a JV for the launch of a commercial self-driving ride-hailing service in Israel, between Mobileye, Volkswagen and Champion Motors; XIO group on the sale of their entire share capital in Lumenis Ltd.; Partner Communications Ltd., on its contemplated USD 1 billion merger with HOT Telecommunications Systems Ltd.; Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, on their merger with Union Bank; Apax Partners and AMI Opportunities Fund in a number of their acquisitions and many more.

Hillel has significant experience advising major international and Israeli companies in a variety of sectors. Hillel has led projects involving growth strategy, business plans, financial modeling, market research, budget and cash flow management, feasibility studies, operational strategy, organizational design, and procurement/supply chain for organizations from start-ups to international conglomerates. In addition, Hillel has extensive M&A transaction execution, structuring, and due diligence experience in a number of industry sectors.
Since 2013, Hillel has served as Head of the Asia practice for KPMG Israel.
Prior to joining KPMG in 2003, Hillel was a Mergers and Acquisitions investment banker with Credit Lyonnais for three years and prior to that was a Merger and Acquisitions structuring specialist with PricewaterhouseCoopers. At Cornell University, Hillel was awarded the John M. Olin Law and Economics Fellowship and earned distinction in several Moot Court competitions as a participant and later, as a judge.

Ilan has over 21 years of experience ininvestment banking, of which 12 is with Barclays/Lehman, and has completed a wide variety of M&A and capital markets transactions. He joined Barclays in 2008. Prior to Barclays, Ilan worked as an investment banker based out of New York for over nine years. He holds an M.B.A from the Wharton Business School.

Catherine Ford is a consultant editor to event programmes, and engaged in the development of timely editorial content for global corporate finance, M&A and capital markets related conferences and events. She routinely moderates discussion panels at conferences across the region. She has worked for Acuris since early 2002, holding a number of senior editorial roles in the company’s European, US and Asia-Pacific head offices.

Noam is an investment director at Intel Capital focusing on investment opportunities related to Israel.
Prior to joining Intel Capital Noam joined Amazon Web Services in 2016 as Venture Capital Business Development Manager in Israel, Spain and Portugal and formed the AWS Israeli Startup business Development team.
He was part of the investment team of two prominent Israeli Venture Capital firms: Gemini Israel Ventures, where he took on the role of Principal between 2013 and 2016, and Ofer Hi Tech, where he operated as Investment Manager between 2008-2011. Application Development and Deployment.
In between his two VC tenures Noam founded and led VentureApp, a startup company providing cloud based services for investors.
He later merged its services to Balink, a cloud applications service provider which he joined as VP Business Development, prior to the company’s acquisition by One Group.
Noam’s focal segments include DevOps, Data Center, Cloud & IT Infrastructure, Enterprise SaaS.
he served on the Boards of several such companies as Jfrog (2020 IPO), SAmanage (acquired by SolarWinds) and CmyCasa (acquired by AutoDesk) and now serves on the boards of DustPhotonics, Model9, Overwolf, Panoply and Alcide.

Gadi Krumholz is Vice President, Corporate Development at SAP. As a direct report to SAP's Global Head of Corporate Development / M&A, Gadi leads SAP's partnerships, investments and M&A activities in the buzzing Israeli innovation ecosystem as well as in parts of Europe and APAC. He recently led the acquisition of Israeli-founded, Vienna-based Emarsys, the leading independent customer engagement platform and has led investments in Israeli startups including PlainID and Totango.
Before SAP, Gadi was VP of Corporate Development at Nokia Networks where he played a leading role in 4 acquisitions. Previously, Gadi held the roles of Global Head of Corporate Strategy at Amdocs and Director of Business Development at Aviv Venture Capital. Gadi holds an MBA from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Israel.

Eran is a former CEO and technology executive with more than 20 years of business leadership developing and executing strategies in challenging markets.
He has a vast track record of building and integrating strong teams, managing large M&A deals, and leading companies to growth.
Eran was appointed CEO & President of Vidyo after serving as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer. He personally led Vidyo’s financial services focus and closed 7 of the top 25 largest banks in the world transforming customer engagement in banking.
He also expanded the company’s focus in healthcare securing a premium customer roster including over 2500 hospitals, doubling revenue in this sector with a patient reach of over 50M telehealth users around the world.
Prior to Vidyo, Eran served as EVP of Global Business, President of Asia Pacific and VP of EMEA at Ceragon Networks, the largest independent supplier of wireless backhaul systems. He joined Ceragon as one of the first 15 employees when the company was pre-revenue and built a global organization of over 800 people across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Eran built the sales, marketing, finance and HR teams and led the global GTM strategy, generating over $450M in revenue.
Eran received a Bachelor of Law degree from Bar Ilan University

Shay is an experiencedentrepreneur and investor. Shay is the Managing Partner of GreenfieldPartners- a technology Investment Fund focused on Growth stage technologycompanies. Shay is also a senior advisor to TPG Growth- A Private Equity fundbased in San Francisco. Prior to that, Shay was the CEO of IlluminareBiotechnologies and Managing Director of Thylacine Capital, a family officeinvesting in technology and real estate.
Select operations experience:
VP CorpDev & BD, WebCollage (acquired by Answers.com)
CEO, eGlue USA Inc.b(acquired by NICE)
VP Product, Alfy
Shay holds a B.A. from Farleigh Dickinson University and EMBA from ColumbiaBusiness School.

As leader of the Hi-tech, Start-Ups and Venture Capital team, Roy is a major partner in our M&A department – and his presence in this section is well merited.
A specialist in mergers and acquisitions of all types, in Israel and abroad, Roy’s experience is comprised of representing both Israeli and foreign clients in diverse international transactions and representing venture capital funds and start-up companies in raising capital in Israel and abroad.
He has unique expertise in advising start-up companies in the cyber and gaming areas, and acts for clients in a wide array of commercial agreements in Israel and abroad, including licensing agreements, development agreements, OEM agreements, and joint ventures agreements. Roy also acts for companies in public offerings in Israel and abroad.
Roy also brings international experience to his clients, having spent more than four years in the New York powerhouse, Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Roy has been involved in a string of high profile transactions, including the largest management buyout transaction ever conducted in Israel, representing NSO Group Technologies Ltd. and its founders Shalev Holy and Omri Lavie in the USD 1 billion deal and Hellman & Friedman LLC’s recent acquisition of Checkmarx Ltd. (Publishable Matter 1), and many more.
Haziel has over 10 years of investment banking experience at Rothschild & Co, advising clients on complex corporate finance transactions – M&A, IPOs and large private capital raises. Haziel spent four years in Rothschild & Co’s London technology team and returned to Tel-Aviv to focus on cross-border technology transactions as part of Rothschild & Co’s global technology team. Recent technology transactions he advised on include the sale of a 50% stake in Priority Software to TA Associates, the sale of Ilyon Dynamics to Miniclip (Tencent) and the $100m private capital raise of eToro.

Tali Sealman is a partner in White & Case's global Mergers & Acquisitions and corporate practice, based in Silicon Valley.
Tali's practice focuses on private and public M&A and general corporate representation of emerging technology and life science companies and venture capital investors. Tali represents strategic and financial buyers and sellers in public and private acquisitions. Tali also represents companies at all stages of their lifecycle and across a broad range of industries, including software, enterprise, security, digital health, fintech, gaming, and blockchain.