Business in Brief

Dan Halutz has been appointed CEO of Kamor Motors, the Israeli importer of BMW vehicles. The former IDF chief of staff and Air Force commander will replace Daniel Brenner, who is the controlling owner of the Kamor group. The company also is BMW's representative in Bulgaria as of January this year, as well as being the distributor of Chinese brand Cherry in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Halutz is also the chairman of Starling, of the IDB group. He will compete in his new job with another former Air Force commander, Avihu Ben Nun, who is the chairman of Universal Motors, the importer of General Motors, Opel, Isuzu and Saab vehicles. Halutz's salary and conditions have not yet been agreed upon. Kamor ended the first half of 2007 with NIS 10.9 million in profits on NIS 332 million in sales. Kamor has a market value of NIS 164 million. z(Yoram Gavison)

Less than two months before the number portability project is supposed to start, the number of technical failures in coordinating among different telephone companies is worrying. In tests run as part of the preparations for the project, it turns out that 50 percent of all calls between different carriers did not reach their destination. Another round of tests will be held this week, and tests on the live systems will start on November 1. Number portability, the ability of telephone subscribers to switch between operators and take their phone numbers with them, is scheduled to start on December 1. Cellcom had the highest success rates for calls, 84.2 percent; and Mirs and Partner also had good success rates. The worst was Bezeq with a 23.1 percent connection rate, and then Barak with 30 percent. (Eran Gabay)