Subscribe to Print Edition | Mon., September 18, 2006 Elul 25, 5766 | | Israel Time: 22:13 (EST+7)
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From right: Ehud Olmert, Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger meeting in Jerusalem on Monday. (Tomer Appelbaum / BauBau)
Last update - 22:10 18/09/2006
Warren Buffet eyeing new purchase in Israel in next 12 months
By Ora Koren

Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett said Monday that he hopes to hear of another Israeli company to buy in about 12 months.

In his first public statement since arriving in Israel on Sunday for a three-day visit, Buffet said that since paying a stunning $4 billion for an 89 percent stake in northern Israeli blades maker Iscar, he hasn't received any investment suggestions in Israel.

He said, however, that he'd be prepared to invest in big companies, if they have half the qualities that Iscar has.

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Buffet said he means to place more of an emphasis on Iscar than on his other investments, saying that the purchase was already a terrific deal.

"I expect to tell the story of Iscar at the next Berkshire annual meeting," he said, adding that he was happy to have invested here and even happier now having visited.

Over time, said the so-called Oracle of Omaha, it will be a wonder and example for other transactions that he does.

He praised Iscar's capacity for making use of a raw material available to anybody, and using it to conquer markets throughout the world.

"I am glad Stef Wertheimer laid the foundation of this company," he said, adding that he had never seen a company with Iscar's quality of business figures.

"What we saw this morning was magic," Buffett commented. He has seen thousands of companies, he said, but nothing with the combination that Iscar presented: tremendous achievement, brainpower, talent and imagination, a company that started from nothing and against all odds, turned into a global company on which all the serious aviation and vehicle makers depend.

Iscar and the Tefen industrial park should be a model for emulation in Israel and in the U.S. as well, Buffett added.

Buffett's partner Charlie Munger clarified that they would be interested in companies whose people love their business.

Moreover, Buffett, the world's second-richest man thinks that by and large, the U.S. and Israel share the same security risks.

Regarding Israel's security situation, Buffett commented that in the short run it does have unique qualities. But in the long run, he said, Israel and the U.S. face much the same security risks.

Munger also commented on the security situation, saying that he's lived to see the violence in Ireland end: perhaps Israel's will end too, he said.

In any case the periodic upheavals have not impaired his preparedness to do business in Israel, Munger added.

Stef Wertheimer, who took the Berkshire Hathaway chiefs on a tour of the Tefen industrial zone - where Iscar is located (and well within the footprint of the Katyusha rockets that Hezbullah had been firing at Israel), said that he firmly believes the way to bring peace to the Middle East is - through industrial parks.

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