Twelve business groups control the Israeli economy, making it one of the most concentrated in the world, Forbes Israel said in a report published Sunday.

The groups - controlled by Sami Ofer, Nochi Dankner, Shari Arison, the Cerberus-Gabriel consortium, Charles Bronfman, Yitzchak Tshuva, the Saban group, Lev Leviev, Matthew Bronfman, Tzadik Bino, the Borovich family, and Eliezer Fishman - have each put together empires of the largest companies in Israel, using organizational structures that have since been eliminated in other parts of the Western world, the report said.

"This is an economy in which the banks can control whole corporations and where the country is afraid of its capital holders," said Ben-Gurion University professor Daniel Maman.

These 12 groups own 60 percent of the aggregate market value of all Israeli public companies (when the exceptionally-large Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is excluded), with shares valued at some NIS 200 billion, Forbes Israel showed.

The groups achieved their control by structuring their holdings like pyramids, such that the top-level holding company controls different groups of companies through descending layers of ownership....

By ZEV STUB of the Jerusalem Post


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