Business Groups in Israel

Abstract

Business groups of various forms and types have existed in Israel almost constantly since its independence. This article begins with a brief summary of the relevant institutional and economic characteristics of Israel, and proceeds to provide a broad historical overview of Israel's business groups, focusing primarily on forces that facilitated their growth, and on the evolution of privately owned business groups in parallel to the demise of government-controlled ones. It also discusses the privatization and ownership changes since 1990 and the evolution of Israel's business elite. Furthermore, it presents a detailed picture of the major business groups in Israel, their economic activity, ownership and control structure, and performance using panel data on 650 public companies from 1995 to 2005. It defines a business group as a group where at least three public companies are controlled by the same (ultimate) shareholder.