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Unfazed by Rabin's assassination, a San Francisco-
based investment bank held an impressive
conference in Tel Aviv.
NEIL COHEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
t's not
every day that a top-
flight American investment
bank holds a major event in
Israel, even in ordinary times,
much less when the prime min-
ister is being assassinated as con-
ference participants land at
Ben-Gurion Airport.
Yet in spite of this tragic tim-
ing, Sandy Robertson — chair-
man and founder of leading U.S.
investment bank Robertson,
Stephens & Co. — remains un-
fazed.
"Rabin's assassination doesn't
change the way I look at the
country," he said. "If anything,
the way people have handled the
situation has impressed me."
Mr. Robertson isn't alone in
this assessment.
Marc Cooper, a principal at
Barington Capital, a New York
investment bank which has been
involved in a number of Israeli
offerings, said, "From a business
point of view I was very encour-
aged that the market showed a
lot of stability.
"In the past, after a political
event of a negative nature, the
market tanked. This time it
didn't. I think this shows that the
market has made the next step
on the road to maturity and
mainstream investor acceptance."
Indeed, the international of-
fering of Koor shares proceeded
without a hitch.
And BZW, the United King-
dom investment house which
manages the London-listed Israel
Fund, wrote in its monthly re-
view that "we believe that in the
longer term the recent tragic
event will not affect the economy
or market sentiment as nega-
tively as might be expected."
Mr. Robertson had to put a
I
brave face on it. He had invested
quite a lot of money and possibly
staked the firm's reputation on
its entry into Israel. But Robert-
son, Stephens, one of the United
States' top-niche investment
banks, seems to be here to stay.
And while a number of people
stayed away from the conference
following Prime Minister Rabin's
assassination the previous
evening, there was certainly a
very solid turnout by foreign in-
vestors, local brokers, money
managers, venture capitalists,
and, above all, from the compa-
nies themselves.
But not all agreed with Mr.
Robertson's assessment.
Victor Halpert, Salomon
Brothers' London analyst, called
the assassination bad news for
foreign investors. Scitex and Efi
founder Efi Arazi said that Israel
looked like Bosnia to foreign in-
vestors that morning. But then
again, Mr. Halpert and Mr.
Arazi, both Israelis who have cho-
sen to make their homes abroad,
might see things in a different
light from foreigners.
According to Mr. Robertson, he
and the conference's co-host,
Evergreen president Jacob Bu-
rak, had decided to go ahead with
the event because so many peo-
ple had come from abroad.
In fact, once the meeting com-
menced, it immediately focused
on the serious business of mak-
ing money. Inside the presenta-
tion rooms all that seemed to
matter were management, earn-
ings, market shares, competing
technologies and other perfor-
mance indicators.
The opening of Mr. Robertson's
lunchtime presentation could
hardly have been more ironic,
r