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Globes, Tel Aviv, Israel, Shlomi Cohen column [Globes, Tel Aviv, Israel](Globes (Tel Aviv) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 05--When Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) reclaims its role as the engine pulling the Nasdaq train then new records are very quickly broken as occurred last week. Since it published its results two weeks ago Apple's share price has risen 11 percent, and today it is once again the company with the highest market cap. Moreover, "Barons" currently ranks Apple, for the first time, in first place in its annual survey of the 500 public companies in North America excelling in investment for growth. Israeli companies traded in the US are required to complete a broader F-20 annual report by the end of April in which they need to list all substantive events that took place during the period of the report. In this context, three small companies that I hold had interesting things to tell us last week. All three companies are in various stages of reorganizing. Alvarion Ltd. (Nasdaq: ALVR; TASE: ALVR), which has changed CEOs three times in the past four years, and is about to close the sale of its Wi-Max division to Telrad Networks Ltd., announced that it was unable to complete its F-20 on time. The company requested an automatic extension of two weeks, "due to operations regarding completion of several transactions whose results will influence the report." It's interesting if the company is talking about any new deals yet to be published. Last week on the day that Eltek Ltd. (Nasdaq: ELTK) published its financials for the final quarter of 2012, the company said in its F-20 that it is checking the sale of the company or most of its assets due to the financial troubles of controlling shareholder Yosef Maiman, who holds a 24.1 percent stake in the company. Eltek specializes in manufacturing unique PCBs such as those found in planes, missiles, the Iron Dome missile defense system, and the medical sector including the pill cameras of Given Imaging Ltd. (Nasdaq: GIVN; TASE: GIVN). The company is being traded at the ridiculous market cap of $8 million with annual revenue around $45 million. The company has been profitable for the past eight quarters if ignoring the one-off reduction in reputation in the fourth quarter of 2012 on the acquisition of a German plant several years ago. It is my belief that the timing of the reduction hints at a "cleaning out" before a change of ownership. Eltek has growth potential both in Israel and abroad in the defense and medical markets if ownership is soon sold. That is on condition that the company is not sold to financial investors coming in for short term ownership but rather industrialists with a long-term management strategic plan to inject the money Eltek urgently needs in order to raise production capacity. Eltek is of another scale and in a different industry but the company is reminiscent of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., which changed to new owners who injected resources that worked wonders within a few years. The third company which revealed interesting matters in its F-20 report was OTI -- On Track Innovations Ltd. (Nasdaq: OTIV; DAX: OT5). US investor Jerry Ivy who had acquired 10 percent of the company, last year led a hostile takeover which ultimately led to a change of the board of directors. CEO and chairman Oded Bashan was ousted from daily management of the company and today he remains a member of the board alongside the company's founding partner Roni Gilboa. Bashan and Gilboa are currently the only two Israelis on the new board, and the only high-tech figures together with eight US directors who specialize in either investment or legal matters. After the troubled results for the fourth quarter of 2012, OTI's share price slumped to $0.80 in March and has fallen a further 40 percent since. Investors have likely read between the lines that the new directors are striving for a swift and optimal exit stressing the maximum realization of intellectual property. In line with this likelihood, Dimitrios Angelis who has extensive experience in protecting patent rights, has been appointed chairman. The small company from Rosh Pina has dozens of patents. This week OTI's new board of directors will face its first real test in the field of intellectual property. In March 2012, Bashan and the previous board of directors, after consulting with US patent experts, decided to sue communications giant T-Mobile US Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) over the use of several smartphones that it was marketing in the US using non-contact pay technology (NFC), which it charged was based on a US patent registered by OTI. The suit will come up for a pre-trial hearing in a Markman Hearing this Tuesday or Thursday. These are two hearings before a trial in which the judge examines the claims of both sides and decides if the suit "holds water" and sets a date for the trial or rejects the suit altogether. It is superfluous to say that if small fry company OTI from Rosh Pina gets over the hurdle this week against T-Mobile, the share will respond with a substantial jump, while the opposite will happen if the suit is rejected. ___ (c)2013 the Globes (Tel Aviv, Israel) Visit the Globes (Tel Aviv, Israel) at www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/nodeview.asp fid=942 Distributed by MCT Information Services |