NewsBank (Globes (Rishon LeZion, Israel))

The average monthly salary of employees in Israel rose by 5.1% in April 2023 to NIS 12,669, compared with April 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports. Almost the entire rise was eroded by inflation, which was 5% over the 12 month period.

The day after Ori Watermann was appointed CEO of Shufersal Ltd. (TASE:SAE), Israel's biggest retail chain, he was asked about the latest price hike for bread. "They asked me what I am going to do. I told myself. What now bread? Just as I was getting into the job suddenly Diplomat asked to put up prices, in an out of context way. I felt that they were taking advantage of the situation. Shufersal...

US 3D printing company 3D Systems Corp. (NYSE: DDD) has launched a takeover bid for Israeli 3D printing company Stratasys (Nasdaq: SSYS). The Israeli company's shareholders now face a complicated choice. Stratasys management has already received and rejected several unsolicited takeover bids from fellow Israeli 3D printing company Nano Dimension (Nasdaq: NNDM).

The shekel has been weakening today against the dollar and against the euro. In morning inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate is up 0.85% at 3.747/$ and the shekel-euro rate is up 0.75% at NIS 3.997/€.

Israeli startups raised $550 million in May 2023, according to press releases seen by "Globes." The figure may be more as some companies prefer to remain in stealth and sometimes do not publicize the investments they have received.

Israeli cloud platform company Ariga announced the completion of an $18 million financing round led by Tiger Global and TLV Partners together with angel investors. The Tel Aviv-based company has also announced the launch of the new version of its Atlas Cloud platform for database schema management.

Israeli food and toiletries importer Diplomat Holdings (TASE: DIPL) has announced price rises for some of its products from July 1. Diplomat imports and distributes a range of well-known brands including Starkist Tuna, which has 40% of the Israeli tuna market and will rise in price by 4%. Other brands, include Jacobs coffee, and Lotus biscuits which will rise in price by an average 6.1%.

Minister of National Infrastructures Energy and Water Resources Israel Katz has awarded to Energean plc (LSE: ENOG; TASE: ENOG) CEO Mathios Rigas the approval of the Head of the Fuel Administration Chen Bar-Yoseph of the license in Block 12 Katlan (Olympus) reservoir as a natural gas discovery. Katlan contains an estimated 68 BCM.

OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman will visit Israel at the start of next week as part of a tour of Europe and Asia. In Israel's tech industry, many entrepreneurs are making vigorous efforts to try and meet the man who is responsible for the most popular and talked about products in recent months, such as chatbot ChatGPT and cloud-based AI tool Copilot.

"We must not underestimate the central role of entrepreneurship and innovation in driving the energy industry forward," Halliburton Region VP Europe, Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa Jean-Marc Lopez told the Globes Energy 2023 Conference, which was held with Halliburton and Energean.

Israel's Minister of Transport Miri Regev is so angry with NTA about the delays in the start of operations of the Tel Aviv light rail Red Line that she has declared her plans to move supervision of the Metro project to another company. But the same time a chain of events and foot dragging by Regev herself and her own aides is threatening delays to the huge Metro project.

"Just as we were the first to bring competition into Israel's gas market, so we want to now provide innovation to the gas and oil business," Energean CEO Mathios Rigas told the Globes 2023 Energy Conference in Tel Aviv yesterday evening.

A few months ago, Merck Group CEO Dr. Belén Garijo said she wanted the company to log annual revenue of €25 billion by 2025. In 2022, Merck's revenue was €22 billion, so this challenge seems well within the company's reach. But life in the pharmaceutical industry has become difficult of late: inflation, a trade war between the US and China, and government efforts in some countries to lower drug...

International credit ratings agency Fitch has published its latest survey of Israel for investors. Under the headline, "Strong Economic Growth Key to Israel's Debt Trajectory," the agency's analysts believe that Israel's debt/GDP ratios will continue to fall in the coming years despite the return to fiscal deficits and due to relatively strong growth. Fitch says that this trend "could lead to...

The Ministry of Transport has withdrawn from the plan to relocate Tel Aviv's New Central Bus Station. At a Supreme Court hearing held on Monday, lawyers representing the state announced that a temporary bus terminal will not be built at Tel Aviv's Panorama center, to partially replace the central bus station.

At midnight between Wednesday night and Thursday (June 1) the maximum retail price of a liter of government price-controlled unleaded 95 octane gasoline at a self-service pump will rise by NIS 0.04 to NIS 6.85 (including VAT), the Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources has announced. The slight rise comes after three consecutive months May in which the price remained...

OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman will visit Israel at the start of next week, and "Globes" understands that there are ongoing talks to arrange a meeting between him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he is in the country. Although a meeting has not yet been finally set, the likelihood of such a meeting is high. Netanyahu's office has not denied that a meeting is on the cards.

Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich told the Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economics and Society today that he plans to tax the growing profits of the banks following the past year's interest rate hikes. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) Banking Index is currently down 2.4% following the announcement.

After its sharp depreciation last week, the shekel has been strengthening today against the dollar and against the euro. In afternoon inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate is down 0.57% at 3.709/$ and the shekel-euro rate is down 0.40% at NIS 3.983/€.

Former Knesset Member, Adv. Zvi Hauser has joined law firm Pearl Cohen as a senior consultant on the Japan Desk. The firm's Japanese team, headed by Adv. Guy Lachmann, represents Japanese corporations in their Israel activities, Japanese investors, and venture capital investors seeking opportunities in Israel's technology and biotech industries.

Indian company Sun Pharmaceuticals has made an offer to purchase all the shares of Israeli company Taro Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TARO). Sun, which holds a 78.5% stake in Taro, is offering $38 per share, a premium of 30% per share. Following the offer, Taro's share price jumped by 22.66% in afterhours trading to $36.05, having closed yesterday with a market cap of $1.105 billion. Sun's...

The shekel has opened the week stronger and in morning inter-bank trading the shekel is strengthening by 0.31% against the dollar at NIS 3.718/$ and by 0.34% against the euro at NIS 3.985/€. Last week the shekel weakened considerably against the dollar and the euro, even though the 2023-2024 budget was passed by the Knesset and despite positive economic data.

After months of stagnation, three large income producing real estate deals have been completed in Israel in less than a week: Timora Fund, which is engaged in purchasing, enhancing and managing properties, has announced that it is buying two buildings in the northern industrial zone of Lod for NIS 131.5 million. The properties are being brought from REIT 1 (TASE: RIT1). This is the third major...

When I arrived a few months ago at one of the largest oil and gas industry conferences in Madrid, for a moment I thought I had come to the wrong place. The display of heavy and expensive machines, which opens every conference, was replaced by a display of autonomous submarines and advanced, small autonomous robots. The heavy seismic data analysis software was replaced by systems streamlining and...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, price rises and the European pipeline gas explosion have been among the upheavals in the energy sector over the past 18 months, but there are also reasons for optimism that come from Israel of all places. Israeli technologies provide tremendous opportunities for the global energy industry, among other things, by helping achieve more efficient and less polluting...

Electra Consumer Products (TASE: ECP), which has been awarded the franchise for Carrefour supermarkets in Israel, is considering a flotation for Carrefour Israel on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). Electra Consumer Products CEO Zvika Shwimmer told investors, "A Carrefour IPO at a company valuation of NIS 800 million or more is on the agenda. There is no doubt that the work we did with...

Over the past 15 years, energy services giant Halliburton has undergone a major change in which it has shifted its focus from new drilling to a model that emphasizes enhanced profitability and requires technological solutions. These developments help in improving work methods, better more efficient and safer production, and reducing pollution as much as possible. This is where Halliburton Labs...

After the Bank of Israel reiterated last week that it is not satisfied at the interest rates paid on deposit accounts, the Israel Competition Authority has now also entered the picture. The Authority, headed by Adv. Michal Cohen, has demanded in recent days that the banks provide details about rises in the interest rates paid on deposit accounts, after the Bank of Israel hiked the rate last week...

In mid-2020, as stock markets recovered from the initial outbreak of the Covid pandemic, food-tech emerged as one of the most promising sectors on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). It is easy to understand what attracted investors to these companies, at a time when money was available and tech stocks enjoyed rising popularity. This is a field where everyone can understand the final product (hone

Second-hand apartments sold