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08:30
Registration
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09:00
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09:10
Keynote Address
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09:40
The Outlook for M&A in Israel
In 2018, M&A activity in Israel reached its highest value on Mergermarket record with a number of huge inbound deals from US corporates leading the charge including IFF’s US$ 7bn takeover of Frutarom and the US$ 3.2bn acquisition of SodaStream by PepsiCo. However, 2018 was also characterised by changing geopolitical dynamics and economic slowdown. In the face of this new environment, this panel of deal leaders will explore whether investments and deal values will be disrupted.
- Exploring international interest and motives for investing in Israel
- What impact will ongoing trade sanctions between the US and China have on investment and deal-making in Israel?
- The return of China to Israel – following the clarification of the strict rules imposed around outbound foreign investment Chinese bidders slowly returned in 2018, will this trend continue?
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10:30
The Future of Private Equity
This panel will explore the outlook for private equity in Israel for foreign and domestic firms.
- International vs domestic investment – what differences are there in the size of investments as well as the volume?
- Exit strategies – go public or stay private? What opportunities and risks are associated with both strategies? Will dual-track become a more popular route?
- Will the US exchanges remain the primary target for IPOs in 2019? What can other exchanges do to become more attractive to Israeli companies looking to list?
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11:20
Networking Break
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11:50
Start-up nation to scale-up nation - The maturing of the Israeli tech market
Israel has long branded itself as the ‘start-up nation’ with the most start-ups per capita in the world and its long history of cutting-edge technology entrepreneurs. As the ecosystem continues to mature, with many firms engaging in further rounds of funding instead of selling quick, is it more apt to call Israel a scale-up nation? And what does this mean for Israel’s technology sectors?
- What is driving technology market in Israel? How is disruptive technology impacting other sectors and what opportunities does this bring?
- Are start-ups pursuing different funding strategies? What does this mean for M&A activity and valuations?
- Will the use of private placements to raise capital increase as an alternative to going public?
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12:40
Comparing US and European deal styles and strategies
Both the US and Europe remain the largest deal corridors for Israeli M&A transactions. It is important for international dealmakers, whether seller, buyer or target, to understand the current thinking on, and differences with respect to, deal terms and process in both regions. Many different factors can have an effect on such deal terms and process such as the increasingly competitive deal landscape, financing options, regulatory issues and the presence of a private equity sponsor in the transaction.
During this session, the speakers will be debating and comparing deal styles and strategies currently being used in the US and across Europe, in what promises to be a lively and informative debate.
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13:00
Closing Remarks
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13:10
Networking Lunch
Catherine Ford
Consultant Editor
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.
Colin Diamond
Partner
White & Case
Colin's practice focuses on securities transactions, public mergers and acquisitions and general corporate matters.
He offers clients the benefit of his experience in connection with registered equity offerings, convertible and high yield bond offerings and American Depository Receipt (ADR) programs. He has worked on numerous initial public offerings (IPOs), including the ground-breaking IPO of Visa Inc., which was the largest in US history at that time.
Drawing on his understanding of disclosure issues, corporate governance practices, Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank compliance, Colin offers authoritative counsel to the boards and audit committees of major public companies.
His formidable knowledge of public companies' obligations under US securities laws also enables him to help his clients with a broad range of compliance issues, such as the preparation of annual, quarterly and periodic reports, proxy statements and SEC no-action letters.
As a partner in White & Case's Emerging Companies Practice, Colin is committed to helping entrepreneurs and start-ups to navigate the complex issues faced by emerging companies, such as convertible note and preferred stock financings.
Clients also benefit from Colin's considerable experience advising on the securities law aspects of Chapter 11 reorganizations. He has been involved, for example, in the Chapter 11 reorganizations conducted by Six Flags, Inc., Visteon Corporation, Mirant Corporation and WCI Communities, Inc. and represented an ad-hoc committee of bondholders in the reorganization of Washington Mutual, Inc.
Doron Gurevitz
Managing Director, Head of Israel
Rothschild & Co
Doron is the Head of the Israel Global Financial Advisory at Rothschild & Co. Prior to joining Rothschild & Co, Doron worked as an investment banker at UBS, and prior to that, Doron served as an advisor in the Prime Minister’s Bureau. Doron holds a BA in Business Administration, graduated with Dean’s honors, and a LLM in Commercial Law
Rothschild & Co has a strong presence in Israel. The Israel team, based on-the-ground in Tel Aviv, is highly connected to local markets and advises Israeli clients on both domestic and cross-border M&A, restructuring, and equity and debt financing. Recent transactions include many of the country’s largest and most high-profile, including Intel’s $15.3bn acquisition of Mobileye, the €1.5bn sale of Keter Group, Israel Chemicals’ €250m strategic asset disposal, US-listing IPOs of Israeli companies as Kamada and Mediwound, London-listing IPO of Matomy, and debt and equity financing advice for Teva totalling $27.8bn.
Yoav Hineman
Partner
Fortissimo Capital
Yoav Hineman has been a partner at Fortissimo since 2008. Yoav has 20 years of combined experience in private equity and investment banking. Prior to joining Fortissimo, Yoav spent three years with Magnolia Capital, the Israeli arm of Thomas Weisel Partners. Prior to joining Magnolia, Yoav was as a software analyst at SG Cowen & Co and worked on SoundView Technology Group’s investment banking team in San Francisco. Yoav earned his B.S. in Business Administration from U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business (Phi Beta Kappa)
Gilad Shany
Partner
Ion Crossover Partners
Prior to ICP, Gilad spent a decade investing in innovative growth companies in public and private markets with Baron Capital (New York) and more recently with Magma Venture Partners (Tel Aviv). Gilad sourced and led investments in 40+ companies that totaled over $1.5bn. Examples include Tesla Inc., Mobileye NV, Iridium Communications Inc., Varonis Systems Inc., and more. Gilad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Tel Aviv University with a B.S. in Physics, Astronomy and Philosophy and with Honors from the Wharton School with an M.B.A.
Daniel Turgel
Partner
White & Case
Daniel is a partner in our Global Mergers and Acquisitions practice. He advises on public and private M&A, 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.
Yair Shoham
Managing Director and Israel Country Manager
Intel Capital
Yair is an investment director focusing on investment opportunities related to Israel. Yair joined Intel Capital in 2012 after more than 13 years as a General Partner with Genesis Partners, one of Israel’s premier venture capital funds, where he focused on communication and consumer products investments. Yair was selected by the Israeli entrepreneurial community and the Israeli High-Tech Association as one of the top five VCs in Israel for the years 2006 through 2009. From 1996 to 2006, Yair was a member of the board of directors of M-Systems, a worldwide pioneer in flash data storage solutions, and was actively involved in the $1.55B sale of the company to SanDisk. Prior to joining Genesis Partners, Yair was a co-founder and managed the business development of two Israeli start-ups, Butterfly Communications (sold to Texas Instruments) and VDOnet (sold to Citrix Systems). Yair began his career practicing securities and corporate law, first in the US, and then in Israel, where he was a partner at Israel’s largest law firm. Yair holds a JD from Loyola University School of Law and a BA from Haifa University.
Rutie Adar
Director, Head of Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center
Samsung
Rutie Adar has been heading Samsung’s Strategy and Innovation Center, Israel since 2013. She has been the main focal point for startups, mature companies and academia to explore potential collaborations with Samsung’s innovation platforms. Some of these collaborations included equity investments of Samsung Catalyst Fund.
Rutie has been working in the consumer semiconductors industry during the past 28 years. She started her career developing image processing and parallel processing algorithms. In the past 20 years Rutie held various managerial positions in marketing, strategy, planning and business development. She joined Samsung in 2010 for technology sourcing for Samsung’s component business.
She has B.S. and M.S. in mathematics and computer science from the Hebrew University Jerusalem and MBA from Tel Aviv University.
Rutie has passion for studying and holds B.A. in political science and international affairs and recently she finished her M.A. in political communications at Tel Aviv University which will be her fifth degree.
Shlomi Ben Haim
Co-Founder and CEO
JFrog
Shlomi is a Co-Founder and CEO of JFrog, creators of the universalDevOps platform and enablers of Liquid Software. He brings over 20 years ofexperience in building profitable, high-growth information technologycompanies. Prior to JFrog, Shlomi was the CEO of AlphaCSP and a Major in theIsraeli Air Force. Shlomi holds an MS from Clark University (Massachusetts,USA) and a BA from Ben-Gurion University (Israel).
Dorit Dor
Vice President of Products
Check Point Software Technologies
Dr. Dorit Dor serves as Vice President, Products for Check Point Software Technologies. She manages all product definition and development functions for both the enterprise and consumer divisions of the Company. Dr. Dor's core responsibilities include leading the company's product management, research and development (R&D) and quality assurance (QA) initiatives from concept to delivery. Dr. Dor has served in several pivotal roles in Check Point's R&D organization. She has been instrumental to the organization's growth and managed many successful product releases. She has been published in several influential scientific journals for her research on graph decomposition, median selection and geometric pattern matching in d-dimensional space. In 1993, she won the Israel National Defense Prize. Dr. Dor holds a Ph.D. and M.S degree in computer science from Tel-Aviv University, in addition to graduating cum laude for her Bachelor of Science degree.
Daniel Turgel
Partner
White & Case
Daniel is a partner in our Global Mergers and Acquisitions practice. He advises on public and private M&A, 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.
Raymond Bogenrief
Partner
White & Case
Ray is a partner in White & Case's global M&A practice, based in Chicago. Ray focuses his practice on complex business transactions, particularly leveraged buyouts for private equity funds and domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He has represented some of the largest names in private equity in transactions ranging in size from several million dollars to more than US$5 billion.
Ray also represents public companies, private companies and venture capital firms in negotiating and structuring acquisitions and divestitures, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital investments, equity and debt financings, recapitalizations and restructurings, and executive compensation and incentive equity matters, as well as advising on general corporate governance and compliance.
Ray is the General Counsel and a member of the Board of Directors of the USO of Illinois. He is also a member of UNICEF's Midwest Regional Board of Directors and the Northwestern Gridiron Network.