After sporting a strong earnings report, NDS Group (NNDS) announced that they have raised their offer to take the company private. According to Business Wire: ” … that the independent committee of its board of directors has reached an agreement in principle with News Corporation and two subsidiaries of funds advised by Permira Advisers LLP on a price at which News Corporation and the Permira entities would acquire all issued and outstanding NDS Series A ordinary shares, including those represented by American Depositary Shares traded on NASDAQ, for per share consideration of $63 in cash. The consummation of the transaction would result in NDS ceasing to be a public company, and the Permira entities and News Corporation owning approximately 51% and 49% of NDS, respectively.”

The deal is subject to approval from a host of regulators, shareholders, etc. Initially the deal was to be at $60/share, but with the company producing strong results, they received and opinion from Citigroup Capital Markets (C) who recommended $63 as a fair price.

We wrote back in July how we thought this may be a new trend, taking public companies private. Check out that post, here. The difference in the NDS case is that they are a company who continue to produce stellar results and whose share price has held up, not dropped by 80% like other companies.

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in NNDS. He has no position in any other stock mentioned as of 8/05/08.

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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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Israeli CRM and billing systems company Amdocs (DOX) has bested analyst estimates and come through with a record quarter. The company reported record revenue of $820 million in Q2, up 15% over Q2 ‘07, solidly beating the consensus estimate of $811.06 million. Non-GAAP net profit grew 9.9% to $132.5 million, or $0.61 per share, above the analysts’ consensus of $0.60. In addition, Amdocs raised Q3 guidance as well.

Globes quotes from a Merrill Lynch report on the earnings: “We attribute the strong performance to the first complete quarter of AT&T (T) revenue recognition and better than expected execution at Sprint (S). This is the second consecutive quarter that management has raised guidance while other telecom-exposed names have been much more conservative. We note that the company has a backlog of $2.42 billion, providing management good visibility into the next few quarters.”

Merrill put a $43 target on the stock, a huge premium to the $28-29 range the stock is trading in. The company seems to really be hitting on all cylinders and with another increase in guidance, once rationale comes back into the market, Amdocs potentially could hit the Merrill target.

Aaron Katsman, IsraelNewsletter.com

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in DOX. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 7/24/08.

Please see our Disclaimer HERE.

NEW! Introducing Israel Opportunity Investor, our monthly subscription-only newsletter. Stay ahead of the game and make smart decisions in Israel stocks. Go here to learn more.

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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