Barclays Capital came out predicting a quick end to the shallow Israeli recession, and a return to decent growth of 2.9%  by next year.  Keep in mind that the Israeli economy was late to the ‘recession game’ and looks to be an early ‘exiter’ from economic turmoil as well.

With all this great news Barclays said that they expect an Israeli Shekel/USD exchange rate of 3.65 buy the end of the year. That’s a big move from the 3.93 area that the currency is trading at now.

According to Globes: “Barclays sees a less severe recession in Israel, and relatively quick growth recovery. The investment house bases its optimism on the fact that about 75% of Israeli exports are high-tech goods, and Barclays says that a rise in the Tech-Pulse Index - showing a US high-tech recovery - points to stronger Israeli exports. The Tech-Pulse Index, measured by the San Francisco branch of the US Federal Reserve, tracks the US information technology sector.”

It looks like we have started to see this happen. As Tech has led the stock market turnaround in the US, Israeli stocks that trade in the US have been flying, up over 33% this year. Keep in mind that, like it or no, President Obama’s push for alternative energy sources will be huge for Israel, as Israel is one of the big global players in cleantech and water technology. If this trend of a ‘tech led recovery’ continues, look for the Israeli hi-tech scene, from small and mid-cap tech plays on the NASDAQ to M&A to Israeli VC, to have a very strong 2nd half of ‘09, and lights out for 2010.

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It may come as no surprise but it appears that foreigners have been dumping Israeli stocks in Tel Aviv at a feverish pace. According to the JPost.com: “Foreigners sold a net $1.2 billion in Israeli stocks and bonds in October, more than double the previous month’s level of $535 million, according to preliminary Bank of Israel figures. About $1.1 billion of the sales were equities traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, compared with $595 million in September, with the rest coming from the sale of TASE-listed bonds and Israeli securities traded overseas, the Jerusalem-based central bank said in a statement today. Overseas investors made direct investments of $444 million in the month, down from $929 million in September, it said.”

These numbers help explain the huge loses the TA indices have suffered, but it’s important to not that as far as emerging markets go, Tel-Aviv has been a big out performer.

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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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Can you tell us a bit about Commtouch (CTCH)?
Gideon Mantel, CEO: Your timing is fantastic, by the way. Small-cap Israeli stocks have been hammered over the past 9 months. With the shekel appreciation, funds in the states lost money just on the currency divergence. Commtouch (CTCH) has a unique piece of technology. We have the ability to look at a huge stream of data and monitor and recognize patterns. Essentially, we function in the cloud [Ed.: the cloud refers to computing resources being accessed which are typically owned and operated by a third-party provider on a consolidated basis]. Scalability, performance, cost and results can be very attractive in the cloud. Over the past 4 years, we’ve used our technology to address secure messaging problems: that is, we aim to stop spam and viruses propagated over email.

How do you distribute your anti-spam solution?
GM: We have traditionally worked solely via OEM agreements. Because we focus on the enterprise, it’s our opinion that it’s more important to sell software bundled together as all-in-one solutions, not best of breed.

Can you give us an idea about Commtouch’s financial performance?
GM: We have almost 100 OEM partners which have helped us to achieve between $15 and $16 million of top line sales which given our scale translates into $0.16-$0.19 per diluted share. We have $16 million in cash, $2 million of which is in AAA-rated ARS. We’ve been cash flow positive for 2 years

Commtouch processes 2 billion emails/day. We are, in a way, content aggregators. We see everything that goes over Internet. We see broadly as opposed to Google, which sees traffic only over one domain. The business is growing 35%-40% year over year. We’ve announced an end-of-year launch of a web security product which would combine URL filtering and a malicious site database. We believe that this market is at least the size of email security market We know because many of our existing customers have needs in the space. In effect, by the end of 2008, we’ll be doubling our addressable market. We’ve also announced that we are investing $1.5 million in R&D to get us there.

How do you expect customer spending to change in a bad macroeconomic environment?
GM: Overall, the IRR for antispam solutions is like 2-3 months. No one we know of is thinking of cutting this. Additionally, the OEM model is very leveragable. It’s almost a money machine. 100% of revenues is service with almost all of it recurring, with very few customers going away. Our P&L is pretty predictable. That said, the OEM model in a service environment has a lot of challenges. It takes a long time to sign and recognize revenues. It generally takes 1.5 years before you start recognizing revenues in this model. We’re already there and that positions us well to sell new solutions through our model.

Tell us about the web security market.
GM: Websense (WBSN) bought Surf Control. Listen to the recent conference call where the CEO says that they’re getting out of the OEM business. IBM (IBM) bought ISS which had bought Cobian. That leaves the big players out of the game. Most solutions are static solutions, meaning they are database driven. Commtouch will provide a real-time web filtering system in the cloud. We have a huge advantage because we already see 2 billion emails per day and have the vision to see where problems stem from. Eventually, all smart phones will have web filtering/URL systems in the years to come. Smart phones will have to tap the cloud when they surf on the Web. We’re basically a cloud vendor. All the pieces and stars are aligned very nicely. The end result, from my perspective, is a big dream with a great reality.

And the anti-spam market?
GM: In anti-spam, we are definitely the OEM leader. We continue to sign 5-7 new deals on a quarterly basis. The quality is improving in our customer base. We announced Aladdin (ALDN) and CheckPoint (CHKP). For us, the Far East is an important growth market. We already have 22 OEM customers in Far East. It’s always a constant war to maintain great detection.

Commtouch is investing in its future via the web security launch. Are you willing to jeopardize profitability to achieve future growth?
GM: The Commtouch story is about profitability, growth, and cash. We made the decision to not make our $6 million but instead make $4.5 million and invest $1.5 million in future growth. We are looking to be an acquirer of technology that will complement what we have today and enhance our existing products. We won’t compete with our customers; we’re not going directly to the enterprise. I don’t think that we’re looking to be acquired.

What could go wrong in the thesis?
GM: The economy impacts everyone. However, we are in a defensive sector. We don’t envision anyone cutting their spam service to save a few thousand dollars. The fact that we are looking at service revenues lessens the impact. We need to stay on top of the bad guys. We’ve done a great job but we need to continue to do so in the future.

What about the strength of the Israeli shekel?
GM: It has impacted us. We’ve communicated all the details to the market. We are very open and the damages weren’t that big. When we budgeted for 2008, when the shekel was at 4.10 per U.S. dollar, we used 3.80. We cut some expenses when we saw the move in the shekel. The impact in Q1 was $80k or so and probably will be a little higher in Q2. Our forecasts are intact.

What are you doing to get the story out about CTCH?
GM: Our CFO does roadshows. We are constantly talking to investors both in Israel and in US. Personally, my time spent is elephant hunting to attract those few investors who are committed to building and staying with a position in Commtouch. Our trading volume is increasing after a couple of months. So, in that sense, a mutual fund investor is more of a target than a hedge fund. We did a reverse split at the end of 2007. The main reason was to get on institutional investors’ radar screens. The stock was significantly higher than it is today with the intention to move from the NASDAQ Small Cap exchange to the NASDAQ Global Markets. Unfortunately, the market fell apart right after the reverse split, which didn’t help.

Thanks.

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An interview with Commtouch (CTCH) was featured as part of our new subscription newsletter, Israel Opportunity Investor. You can find out more about the company and the opportunities we cover at www.israelnewsletter.com

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Aaron Katsman
IsraelNewsletter.com

BluePhoenix Solutions (Nasdaq: BPHX) a leading provider of value-driven legacy modernization solutions was absolutely pounded yesterday on the heels of a couple of analyst EPS downward revisions. The Israeli company saw its stock fall more than 30% as analysts viewed the strong Israeli shekel as impacting earnings.

As reported in the Tech Trader Daily: “Roth Capital’s Nathan Schneiderman notes that Blue Phoenix has nearly 30% of its headcount in Israel, vs. less than 10% of its revenue. He notes that the shekel has appreciated 5% against the dollar since the company provided guidance on May 1.”

“Craig-Hallum’s Jeff Van Rhee made a similar call this morning, lowering EPS estimates “to reflect currency and increasing macro challenges internationally.”

Both analysts lowered future earnings estimates. Schneiderman cut his estimates by about 7-8%. So why should the stock have gotten crushed by 30%? It’s not exactly like BluePhoenix has been soaring and investors are being brought down to earth. It’s not exactly a secret that the Shekel has been strong. I find it hard to believe that investors were “shocked” to see that currency issues would impact earnings. At IOI we have been speaking about this issue for months. In fact both analysts have new $15 price targets. Even pre-rout that was a 50% premium to where it was trading, now at under $7/share we have a target more than 100% above the current stock price.

I am certainly not saying to run out and buy the stock. I am saying something strange is at play here. They are basing their call for ‘09 on continued shekel strength and too much exposure to the financial sector. Have these analysts turned in forex traders? Are they predicting that the Shekel will rise for another full year? Neither one of these issues is new, so why are they only waking up now and dropping numbers? After all the Shekel has been surging higher for more than a year, and we all know that banks will probably chop some IT spending in order to cut costs.

Is this another case of analysts making a call after the fact? If so keep an eye on BluePhoenix, as it may potentially turn into a juicy contrarian play.

Disclosure: Author’s fund has a position in BPHX as of 6/20/08.

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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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