Israel Desks - February 2020 Edition

19 ISRAEL HAS 2020 VISION As a fertile ground for investment, Israel has been one of the world’s stunning success stories. Punching well above the weight of its 9 million population, Israel’s position as a frontrunner in innovation and technological prowess has attracted the interest of strategic buyers, venture capital and private equity funds, and 2020 looks set to continue in the same vein. “2019 was a strong year for Israeli M&A. The volume of deals significantly increased andwe sawa recordnumber of transactions ranging fromUSD500 million to USD1 billion, as well as a number of large scale transactions such as the Mellanox - Nvidia deal, the USD2 billion sale of Habana Labs to Intel and our own, the over USD1 billion sale of Lumenis to funds of Baring Private Equity Asia (BEPA). If I were asked twomonths ago, I would probably predict that next year will be more of the same,” sai d Doni Toledano, H ead of M&A, Banking & Finance at Erdinast, Ben Nathan, Toledano & Co. “2019 was indeed a very active year for Israeli M&A, mainly in terms of number of deals and not very far from 2018, in terms of deal value” agrees Ran Hai, P artner at Herzog Fox & Neeman , Israel’s powerhouse law firm. “We believe that without any adverse unexpected events, such as the Coronavirus, the global M&A market may be more intensive in 2020 than it was in 2019.” Barak Platt, P artner at Yigal Arnon & Co. agrees. "We continue to see a very robust M&Amarket in Israel. It's astounding, as we speak with people around the world how they are all focused on Israel. Israeli technology is recognized as cutting-edge and many foreign buyers are interested in acquiring Israeli development teams andmore developed companies too.” His fellowpartner, Ezra Gross a dded: “We expect large corporates and private equity funds will continue to look to Israel for acquisition opportunities and expect many domestic technology companies will continue to look at being acquired as the clearest path to liquidity." A decade of successive increases in capital invested in Israeli high-tech In fact, the previous decade saw USD39.1 billion raised, with 2019 seeing a staggering 400% rise in dollar terms since 2010, according to a report by IVC-Zag-S&W. In 2018, Israeli tech firms raised USD6.35 billion in 532