Lev Leviev has done it again: For the second year in a row, his company Africa-Israel Investments Ltd. (TASE:AFIL; Pink Sheets:AFIVY.PK) has taken first place in the "Globes Top 100" rankings of Israel's most successful companies.
Just to make it sound even better, last year "Globes" wrote, "Africa-Israel is breaking records from one day to the next. The stock has soared, the results just get better, the deals are getting bigger, the lines of business are expanding, and the appetite has grown." What has changed since then? Not much, apparently.
And here's some more facts. Since the beginning of the year the company's value has risen by 75%. The stock price soared 30% in April alone, and from 1999 to March 31, 2007, it delivered a phenomenal 3,400% return.
Leviev only recently set a target value for the company at the end of 2007 - $7 billion. Many people were skeptical. Four months on and the company is almost there, and it is now in third place, in terms of market cap, among the companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). This is the new "people's stock."
The company's business, incidentally, has also been doing well. Net profit, for example, rose 30% to NIS 850 million in 2006. And we are about to see Africa-Israel's crowning achievement - the flotation in London of its activity in Russia at a value of $5 billion.
Africa-Israel is, to all intents and purposes, a global company - Russia, the US, Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. Its passion for entrepreneurship has taken it to the top. The company has been relentless in its search for growth engines, and it is constantly setting itself new and audacious challenges.
Africa-Israel's story, essentially, is also the story of the index- the companies that did well in the 2007 rankings are all companies with a global focus. That's where the growth engine is. Furthermore, the flourishing real estate sector has brought about a rise in both the number and the rating of real estate companies in the "Globes" rankings. In second place, for example, came Gazit-Globe Ltd. (TASE: GLOB). The company has produced a 1,000% return for investors in the last eight years, and in 2006 alone, it increased its net profit by 175% to NIS 360 million.
In third place is Israel Chemicals (TASE: CHIM). While it is not a real estate company, it nevertheless has its sights set firmly overseas and is considered one of the global leaders in its field.
The companies ranked 4 to 19 are as follows: Alony Hetz Property and Investments Ltd. (TASE: ALHE), Ormat Industries Ltd. (TASE: ORMT), Brill Shoe Industries Ltd. (TASE: BRIL), Israel Corp. (TASE: ILCO), Delek Group Ltd. (TASE: DLEKG), Arazim Investment (TASE: AZRM), Excellence Investments Ltd. (TASE: EXCE), Analyst IMS Investment Management Services Ltd. (TASE:ANLT), Castro Model Ltd. (TASE: CAST), TAT Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:TATTF), Rosebud Medical Ltd. (TASE: ROSB), Alrov (Israel) (TASE: ALRO) , Laboratory Information & Management Systems Ltd. (LIMS) (TASE: LIMS), Scope Metal Trading and Technical Services Ltd. (TASE: SCOP), Hod Metal Products and Manufacturing Ltd. (TASE: HOD), and Melisron Ltd. (TASE: MLSR). Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) came 20th.
The ranking, which is based chiefly on market performance - returns and liquidity, and on business performance - profits and so on, highlights the processes that the business sector has been undergoing in recent years. For example, the real estate sector has expanded, while high-tech companies have to some extent stagnated and their numbers and ratings are both down in this year's rankings. This is not necessarily because of a weakness in Israel's high-tech sector. It is due to investors still finding it difficult to recover from the bubble, as well as the fact that companies have been disappearing from the TASE after being acquired by foreigners.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on May 3, 2007
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