Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com

I would be remiss if I neglect to mention that tonight is my wife’s birthday. This post is serving me as a reminder that I still need to buy her a gift. Maybe I will get her a subscription the the IOI Premium Newsletter! With gold prices surging, I can’t afford to by her actual jewelry, but I can afford  to buy some shares in these 2 little-known Israeli stocks, and they are sure to be DIAMONDS in the rough.

Elbit Medical Imaging(EMITF) stock has dropped nearly 20% in the last few weeks. The real estate and bio-tech company was a big winner for investors in ‘07 and even with a slow start to ‘08, I look at ElbitMedical as a star performer this year as well. They are opening a mall in Poland( maybe I can get some cheap jewelry there) which is a continuation of their plans to continue building out the real estate holdings in Eastern European along with some new projects in India. As I have mentioned before, the real story with Elbit Medical is their very large stake in two of the most exciting private (though an IPO is definitely in the cards) companies Israel has to offer. Insightec ltd., develops a product that combines MRI technology with focused ultrasound in order to treat serious diseases such as bone, liver and brain tumors, without the invasive procedures that are currently used.  The other private company is Gamida Cell. Gamida Cell is developing, along with the aforementioned Teva,  a line of cell therapy products for the treatment of such diseases as leukemia and lymphoma. 

Jacada(JCDA) a leading provider of unified desktop and process optimization solutions for customer service operations, has been signing deals right and left and a few weeks ago announced that they were selling their Application Modernization Business to Software AGfor $26 million. They are doing this to solely focus on high growth business, to position Jacada as a pureplay in the call center solutions business. The firm provides a single, unified workspace for customer service organizations managing lots of legacy and disparate software systems. My buddy Zack”I love the Internet” Miller had a great analysisof this deal. I really think Jacada is poised to fly, and in fact with all the current selling on Wall Street, Jacada stock has actually been inching up.

Happy birthday!

Disclosure: Author’s fund holds a position in EMITF and JCDA. He has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 1/9/08.

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Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is 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.

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Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com

Elbit Medical Imaging’s(EMITF), subsidiary InSightec has raised$30 million in an internal financing round. Investors were Elbit Medical Imaging subsidiary Elbit Ultrasound (Netherlands) BV, General Electric Company (GE) subsidiary GE Capital Equity Holdings Inc., MediTech Advisors LLC, and some InSightec directors and officers. Elbit Ultrasound invested $19.8 million, boosting its stake in InSightec to 53%.

InSightec develops a product that combines MRI technology with focused ultrasound in order to treat serious diseases such as bone, liver and brain tumors, without the invasive procedures that are currently used.

The question needs to be asked when they plan on an IPO? There have been rumours for the better part of 2 years as to a billion dollar IPO but to date nothing has been done.

In an interview with Globes, Elbit Medical Imaging president Shimon Yitzhaki answered the question:

Globes”: You originally planned to float InSightec in 2005 and sales haven’t risen substantially since then. Are you disappointed?

Yitzhaki:“Not at all. InSightec is an amazing breakthrough company. The board tells us that it will be worth billions, maybe more than all our real estate deals. Just a little patience is needed.”

Yitzhaki noted, “We believe that with the products in the pipeline and insurance reimbursement, within two or three years, we’ll reach hundreds of millions in sales.”

Will you reopen your IPO plans?

“We’re waiting on the IPO until we have insurance reimbursement from a number of insurers as well as FDA approval for at least one of our cancer treatments. There are also other options besides an IPO.”

Please see our Disclaimer HERE.

Disclosure: Author has a position in EMITF. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 11/30/07.

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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.

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BigBand (Nasdaq: BBND) lands a deal with Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR) for its switched digital video solution. Charter is the fifth operator to initiate commercial deployments of BigBand’s SDV solution. The five largest cable operators in the U.S. have now selected BigBand’s SDV. Check out our recent coverage of BigBand.

Motty Zisser, Elbit Medical’s (Nasdaq: EMITF) head, is already mulling expanding the Budapest Arena Center. The 66,000-square meter mall is Hungary’s largest mall and is fully occupied. The center was sold in August and it looks like Elbit Medical may see a gain of 1 billion NIS on the sale.  See our coverage of Elbit Medical’s strategy here.

Merrill Lynch upgrades Israel cellular provider, Cellcom (NYSE: CEL).  The bank said, “Despite the share price rallying 17% in the past month, we see two reasons to recommend purchase. First, we find a prospective 7.6% dividend yield compelling and, second, we see scope for additional cash returns with current net debt only 1.3 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and well below management comfort levels of 2.5 times.”

Israel theft-prevention firm, Ituran (NYSE: ITRN), whiffs on earnings by $.03.

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