2014: The year of the Israeli IPO?
For years, Israeli startups chose M&A over the public markets.
That could start to change in 2014.
“I think 2014 will be the year for more IPOs,” said Nimrod Kozlovski, a partner at Jerusalem Venture Partners. “The home run in Israel is if you go IPO on Nasdaq, and I think that more companies in Israel now are lining up, trying to go to Nasdaq.”
Mr. Kozlovski said the Israeli startup industry has matured to the point of creating 15 to 20 companies that could launch an IPO next year on New York, London or Tel Aviv exchange.
Wix.com’s IPO last month set an example for many of these firms and increased the appetite to test the public markets. The website design company launched the biggest U.S.-listed Israeli debut in years, raising about $127 million. Its stock has already jumped roughly 70% from its offer price, with the company hitting a market valuation of just over $1 billion.The biggest reason why Israelis have tended to favor M&A (mergers and acquisitions) over IPO's (initial public offerings) in recent years is - in my opinion - a lack of patience. Everyone here wants to score quickly and that's much easier to do in the M&A market.
But we will see... And yes, I do IPO's....
Labels: Israeli high tech, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:10 PM
1 Comments:
M&As also set up a team situation... a foot in the door of relevant markets. Of course, that assume that the competition isn't just buying you to close down the competing technology... I've seen that over and over.
Anyway, what are the stats for licensing agreements for R&D achievements getting integrated into existing products or getting produced and marketed by someone... I've been thinking more of that would be good for revving things up. You could do licensing *and* an IPO, couldn't you?
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