BUSINESS I AN UNBELIEVABLE SALE! FINE DESIGNER FURNITURE 01% OFF Israel Forgets Public With Privatization JOEL BAINERMAN Special to The Jewish News flu 5TAKE AN ADDITIONAL W 0 THE ALREADY WE'RE OVERSTOCKED! IMMEDIATE DELIVERY • NOMINAL CHARGE GROUPS SOLD AS COMPLETE SETS • NO LAYAWAYS LARGE SELECTION TO CHOOSE FROM SAT. & SUN. • NOV. 18 & 19 SHERWOOD STUDIOS FARMINGTON HILLS INDUSTRIAL CENTER CLEARANCE CENTER 24734 CRESTVIEW CT. FARMINGTON HILLS Phone: 476-3760 HOURS: SAT. 10-5 • SUN. 12-5 OVER 60 "Your No. 1 Financial Fear Should Be The Cost of Long Term Nursing And Home Care Expenses "Medicare & Catastrophic Insurance Plans Won't Payl" • MONEY — April 1988 Protect Your Hard Earned Assets From Financial Ruin co'? THE BENSMAN GROUP NOW The Leader and Pioneer of Long Term Care Protection in Michigan. We Carry All The Major Policies Listed In Consumers Report and Money Magazines To Meet Your Individual Needs & Pocketbook! Call Us Now at 855-4524 for A FREE Personal Consultation In Your Own Home or At Our Office THE BENSMAN GROUP "THE LEADERS AND SPECIALISTS IN SENIOR INSURANCE PROTECTION FOR OVER 40 YEARS" 30230 Orchard Lake Road Farmington Hills, MI 48018 (313) 855-4524 Also Tune into Lawrence and Daryl Bensman on "The Senior Spotlight" every Wednesday at noon, WCAR (1090 AM) WE CONDUCT NURSING HOME AND HOME CARE INSURANCE SEMINARS - ORGANIZATIONS PLEASE CALL UNIVERSAL WATCH REPAIR Why Monkey Around? Trust Your Watchmaker! Now — breast. cancer has no place to hide in Michigan. Call us. . Regular Watch Clean $ 19" $1 0 ° Regular Quartz Watch Reg. Watch Battery With Coupon Expires Nov. 1, 1989 29 95 Clean WE DO REPAIRS FOR OVER 120 JEWELERS Don't throw away your old watch . . . let us convert it to quartz Parts not incl. 559.5329 ADVANCE BLDG. 9 Mile & Greenfield st #35b 58 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 17 1989 til AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY` hen the Israeli government an- nounced its plan to privatize the majority of its 192 state-owned enterprises four years ago, international investors were intrigued. Now the grand sale, as it's called, has turned into the grand mess. The Israeli government con- trols 12 percent of all business activity, employing 65,000 workers with an an- nual production of $6 billion and exports of $1.6 billion. In the first stage of the plan, eleven government- owned businesses are ex- pected to bring in $700-800 million. Topping the list is Israel Chemicals, El Al Airlines, Oil Refineries Ltd., Bezek Telecommunica- tions Company and Israel Electric Company. _ The grand sale got under way in early 1987 when the government sold its share in Haifa Chemicals to a U.S.- based investors group headed by former Israeli Arye Genger, a friend of Airel Sharon, and billionaire Meshulam Riklis. Last spring, Australian Jewish millionaire Jack Lieberman paid $95 million for the government's portion of the Paz Oil Company. In recent months, the Jerusalem Economic Cor- poration, a real estate and in- dustrial park builder, was sold to Bear Sterns, an American investment bank, for $53 million. In the Jerusalem Economic Cooperation (JEC) and Paz deals, secret bids were given and accepted without the public's knowledge. In all three cases, critics of the government's handling of the sales say that political con- nections were responsible for the three foreign investors getting a bargain. Now they stand to make millions in the next few years by selling shares of their newly privatiz- ed companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. A recent report on the government's selling of state-owned enter- prises claimed that Paz was sold to Australian milionaire Jack Lieberman for $81 million, and not the $97 million originally claimed by the government. "Instead of increasing foreign investment in the country, we stand to lose hun- dreds of millions of our own money," cried an editorial in the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharanot." The paper criticizes the government for not floating these companies' share on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and then let the in- vestors take over the com- panies at stock prices, which would more accurately reflect their worth. - Zef Refuah, head of the Government Corporation Authority, says Israel can't adopt the British system of selling shares directly to the public- because Israeli cor- porations are smaller, and the country lacks a serious stock exchange. In Israel, he points out, it is the pension funds, not the public, which have the spare cash. Yet Sam Bronfeld, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange deputy manager, disagrees and says the Israeli public should have come before foreign investors. At least 50 percent of the shares of a company to be privatized should be offered to 4 the public, he syas. Instead, the governMent allowed foreign investors to sell shares only to those who could buy in bulk at below- market prices. He insists the only way the stock market will become a "serious" stock exchange is' when large • government corporations use it as a-vehicle to raise money. Hevrat Ovadim, the economic arm of The Histradrut and Israel's other major economic force, has also forgotten about the public in • its bid to sell off assets. All told, Hevrat Ovadim controls more than 25 percent of Israel's industry and com- merce, employs 260,000 peo-, ple. and produces more than one-fifth Israel's GNP. Door Industries, Israel's largest conglomerate (which had 1988 sales of $2.3 billion) 4 and The Histadrut's greatest asset, is smothering under losses of more than $300 million per year. It recently put Tadiran,. the country's largest consumer electronics firm and second largest defense contractor, on the auc- tion block, and looked to wealthy Jewish businessmen such as Shaul Eisenberg and Carlo De Benedetti, as poten- tial buyers, not the Israeli GI public. Despite the socialist origins of Israel, the government decided not to give the 1.6 million members of The Histadrut a chance to buy a piece of the companies for which they work. 111 • • • •