I stumbled across the Reuters Health Summit that’s taking place in New York this week. Interestingly enough, they’re blogging the conference, so cheap investors like me can “attend” remotely. You can find the blog for the summit here.
Israeli generics giant, Teva Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: TEVA), participated and there’s a great (short) audio clip on what Teva believes in happening in the biogenerics space during and after the election cycle. Go here to check it out.
Written by: Aaron Katsman | November 15, 2007
Aaron Katsman
IsraelNewsletter.com
Today’s news that Isal Amlat Investment Ltd. has agreed to buy 10% of TAT Technologies(TATTF) for 54 million shekels, is sweet for investors. Currently TAT is trading pre-market at a market cap of just under $100 million. This deal values the company at about $136 million(at USD/NIS of 3.95), a huge premium to where it’s trading. TAT Technologies together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of a range of heat transfer equipment used in mechanical and electronic systems on-board commercial and military aircraft, and other electronic equipment.
The company has continuously shown strong growth. In Q2 ‘07 the company announced results: Net income of $1,923,020 an increase of 30% compared to the net income of $1,481,048 for Q2 ‘06. The company also has a dividend yield over 2.5%.
Factor in today’s acquisition(vote of confidence) and TAT looks like a nice play for long-term investors looking for some exposure to the aviation industry.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
Disclosure: Author has a position in TATTF as of 11/14/07.
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Aaron Katsman is the lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
Zack Miller
IsraelNewsletter.com
Jacada (Nasdaq: JCDA), the Israeli software provider for unified customer service, has been murmuring about a material deal back in early August. Israel Opportunity Investor’s Aaron Katsman recently covered the announcement of the deal with Central Hudson Gas & Electric. Well, there’s another material announcement. This time it’s with O2 UK, the leading provider of mobile services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom.
Elbit Systems (Nasdaq: ESLT) out with strong earnings Wednesday with a posted 41 percent rise in third-quarter net profit on higher revenues and forecast a better performance in 2008. We chose Elbit as one of Israel Opportunity Investor’s “7 Touchdown Stocks” recently.
Gilat Satellite (Nasdaq: GILT) reported earnings for the 3rd quarter that more than doubled as the company increased revenue and held back costs. We wrote recently about why Gilat might be an interesting play right here.
NICE Systems (Nasdaq: NICE) announced that it has expanded its relationship with DirectTV (NYSE: DTV).
Zack Miller
IsraelNewsletter.com
As my colleague, Aaron Katsman, opined on these pages just a few months ago, Israel would not be immune to the subprime mess that began in the U.S., and through complicated collateralization, spread throughout the world. At the time, news spread quickly in Israel that a leading developer, Heftziba, was becoming insolvent and that its onerous debt of $400M (large in relative terms) quickly sacked any chance of paying back investors, banks that financed the company, and lastly, homeowners who purchased properties through Heftziba.
Well, Aaron’s prediction was spot on. Haaretz reported today that one of Israel’s largest banks, Bank Hapoalim, is suffering from the US mortgage malaise as well. Says Haaretz:
Hapoalim has a bond portfolio with American mortgage-backed securities valued at about $3.5 billion. So far the crisis has cost the bank $120 million. For the second quarter, Hapoalim had reported only a $35 million loss, but in an immediate announcement to the stock market yesterday evening in response to a demand from the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), the bank said that figure was now much higher.
Hapoalim claims that these bonds are only AAA government-type bonds but hasn’t been fully forthright about what they have on the books. Bank Discount, another large Israeli bank, apparently has some significant exposure.
Look for more banks to follow-suit as over the past few years, many of the Israeli banks and financial institutions were buying large swaths of assets overseas, including in real estate-related exposure.
Investors in the US see how painful having invested alongside poor risk managers, let’s hope (and pray!) that Israeli risk managers have acted more prudently.
Disclosure: Author’s fund has no position in any stock mentioned as of 11/09/2007.
Please see our Disclaimer HERE.
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Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email zack@profile-financial.com
