Investors want to know: which is better, Lev Leviev's Africa Israel (TASE: AFIL), which has been waning of late, or Arcadi Gaydamak's recent acquisition, Ocif Investment & Development (TASE:  OCIF), quite the darling of late?

Let's start Ocif's story from the end, which is that on Tuesday the management announced that it knows nothing of any investment by Mr Arie Bar-Lev (namely, Arcadi Gaydamak) in Ocif, and that the quote in Globes was solely the affair of Mr Gaydamak, who is not an officer in the company. He may be the biggest shareholder, with 47.2% of Ocif's shares, but he is not an office holder.

First off, what Gaydamak said is that he plans to bring his Russian real estate activities into Ocif, that these assets have enormous potential, and their repricing should leverage Ocif's future value. Secondly, this is what Ocif's management clarifies that it knows nothing about.

Ocif is not the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, which Gaydamak owns and where he can call the shots. Ocif is a publicly traded company and its management decided to adopt an ounce of prevention: before the Israel Securities Authority demands clarifications, it had better clarify matters, which is a good thing.

All this has to do with the utterance of another Russian-Israeli tycoon a few months back. Lev Leviev said that in his opinion, the value of Africa Israel's unpriced assets reflect a company valuation double its market capitalization at the time. After that, Africa Israel's share price shot up 70% and the management was asked for clarifications of the statement, which Leviev had made at an investors' conference, not via an official statement to the TASE.

So the big question is, will what happened at Africa Israel repeat itself at Ocif? Are the recent gains in Ocif shares just the start of a glorious journey into the unknown?

Sources near Gaydamak  say that he means for Ocif's value to rival Africa Israel's. If Leviev could do it, surely he can too.

Ocif today trades at a market valuation of NIS 1.2 billion. If it maintains that value until mid-June, then when the TASE refreshes its indices, it should get into the TA-100 index, which would require index-based investment vehicles to buy its shares.

For the year 2006 Ocif reported revenues of nearly $100 million and a loss of $6.6 million. That is a considerable loss, though it's an improvement against the year 2005. Its shareholders equity is NIS 200 million and if Gaydamak means to transform Ocif into Africa Israel II, investors are in for a wild ride.

The blue arrow in Ocif's chart shows when the company officially announced the acquisition by Gaydamak. That week, around Passover, shares of Ocif rose 40%. Since the announcement they've risen by an accrued 80%. That's quite an increase, but if the Africa Israel phenomenon does repeat itself, it's just the beginning.

Ocif' all-time high was in February 2000, when it hit roughly 15,000 points. It took the share price seven years to return to that level. As we said it broke through in Passover. It's hard to predict what will happen next, but we can say that the 20,000-mark should serve as a stop-loss point. Our recommendation is therefore Hold and keep an eye on the headlines.

Africa Israel on the other hand has been steadily gaining ground from February 2000, and has risen more than 20-fold in that time, until ebbing a bit this month.

Its share price in February 2000 was 2,500 points. At the start of May 2007, it had reached 57,800. Not bad, considering that the real estate sector sank into crisis in 2002.

It may be called Africa Israel, for historic reasons, but investment managers joke that it should be called Russia Israel. That's where most of its activity is.

The company's market capitalization is NIS 24 billion and on Tuesday it reported netting NIS 232 million in the first quarter of 2007, mainly thanks to adopting IFRS (international accounting standards) and repricing its assets upwards.

Its financial statement shows the company in rosy light, but repricing under IFRS doesn't bring fresh cash into the company: the gains, in terms of the value of its assets, are on paper. Many analysts have raised eyebrows, but on the other hand Africa Israel isn't the type to hasten to sell its properties, and therefore, the repricing was reasonable.

The company also said that it means to issue more liquid securities, which depressed its share price on Tuesday, as it would increase the company's float.

Africa Israel's chart shows that its share price has risen by more than 90% in the last year alone, and has risen 20-fold in the last seven years. From its peak of 57,800 points at the start of May, It sank to the region of 44,000, as the arrows show.

That area is the share price's stop zone, as breaking through on the downside could push down the stock towards 37,000. Our recommendation is therefore Hold, and if the conditions turn clement and 44,000 holds strong, the share price will break through on the upside.

To conclude, investors want deeds, not talk. "Africa is Russia" and Ocif may get there and both are on Hold.

The author manages the dealing room at Quattro Financial Markets and manages the Quattro All Star mutual fund.

The information herein is under no circumstances to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The author and/or the company in which he works may hold various securities, including securities mentioned herein.  In any case, this article is not to be seen as advice to buy or sell securities.

Yaron@quattro.co.il