Deal for IDF expertise

Israeli cybersecurity firm Indegy has been purchased for £60 million by Tenable, a Nasdaq-listed company that will use the acquisition as its Israeli-based development centre.

Reports said a further £11-13 million will be needed for extra costs, including the transfer intellectual property.

Indegy was founded in 2014 by its chief executive Barak Perelman, Mille Gandelsman and Ido-Trivizki — all veterans of Israel’s prestigious Talpiot army unit, a technology development programme of the IDF.

Historic Jerusalem sale

The historic home of the Anglo-Palestine Bank, one of the first multi-storey buildings to be built in Jerusalem, has been sold for £24 million.

Amid continuing a growing trend in Israel’s real estate sector, the building is expected to be converted into hotel.

The bank was one of the most important financial institutions in the Jewish community of Palestine before the founding of Israel.

The entity which purchased the building is believed to be controlled by a UK-based investor along with Avi Binyamin and Adv. Ariel Azulay.

It is believed the new owners will seek to remove the building from a list of preservation properties.

Israeli business circles celebrate a record year for start-up investments

2019 has already seen a significant rise in the total amount in Israeli start-ups compared to all of 2018.

£685 million was put into such companies in November alone and, with one month to go, the total raised in the year to date stands at just under £6 billion.

It is a whopping $1.2 billion more than the 2018 total, which itself was some £800 million up from 2017.

Buyout for power plant

The Chinese-Israeli MRC Group has won the tender for the purchase of the Alon Tavor power plant from the Israel Electric Corporation, the first of five planned privatisations of Israel’s power plants for approximately £411 million.

A financial consortium led by Bank Hapoalim granted MRC a £363 billion loan with a 14-year lifespan.

The financing, which was provided alongside an additional credit line, was put in place to enable MRC to complete the deal this month.

The next power station expected to be sold is at Neot Hovav, in the south.

The other plants will be sold annually over the next three years.

IzBiz is compiled every fortnight for the JC by Jeremy Seeff, partner at ERM, a cross-border law firm based in Tel Aviv for corporate, finance and real estate matters. Read previous editions of IzBiz here.