Markets in Brief

VeriFone plans to fire 200 workers in Israel who manufacture clearing terminals. The layoffs will take place in the months after VeriFone outsources production. On the bright side, it means to outsource within Israel, and some of the workers may be taken on by the new manufacturer. Of the company's 2,300 workers, 600 are in Israel. (Nir Zalik)

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries unit Barr Laboratories has received final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market Triamcinolone Acetonide Nasal Spray with paragraph IV certification, Teva and its partner Perrigo said. That means the sellers have an 180-day window of exclusive rights to sell the drug. Teva will be able to market the ANDA product, which is manufactured by Perrigo under license from Sanofi-Aventis, starting on June 15, 2011. Perrigo says it will be sharing costs and benefits from the sales. The product is the AB-rated equivalent to Sanofi-Aventis' Nasacort, which is used to treat nasal allergy symptoms in adults and children. (TheMarker)

Azorim stock has risen 307% from the start of the year thanks to a combination of factors: the markets' rally, the sale of 12 hotels to the Fattal chain for NIS 200 million net, a drop in leverage, and debt rescheduling at parent company Boymelgreen Capital. The surge has restored Azorim's market capitalization to NIS 768 million, as of yesterday's opening. That does well by Yoram Turbowicz, who joined the company as chairman on July 1. Aside from a salary of NIS 125,000 a month for a 70% position, he has 1.05 million stock options convertible into 3% of Azorim's stock, which has gained 80% since he took the job. In short, he's up NIS 10.2 million on paper. (Michael Rochvarger)

The ratio of foreign investors in total forex trading rose to 61% in July, up from 59% in June, says the Bank of Israel. Currency conversions totaled $37 billion in July, down $1 billion from the month before. Over-the-counter options (which aren't traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange) came to about $11 billion in July, against $10 billion in June. The shekel appreciated against the dollar by 3.3% in July, and against the euro by about 3.4%, the central bank said. Swap transactions soared to $52 billion in volume, higher than in the first months of 2009. "As usual, most of this consisted of transactions by foreign financial institutions, which totaled about $42 billion," the Bank of Israel wrote. (TheMarker)

The Israel Securities Authority has chosen private-sector forex dealing rooms (namely, not banks) as its next target for regulation. Rafi Cohen, manager of Matach-24, told TheMarker, "We applaud the initiative to regulate the market and think it will serve the investing public and companies." While the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is the only licensed exchange, the watchdog suspects that other trading arenas have sprung up where trading volume is steadily increasing. It's high time to regulate the phenomenon, says the ISA. (Tal Levy)

Subsidiaries of Alfred Akirov's Alrov Real Estate that had borrowed money from Swiss banks in the past, and still owed CHF 273 million (Swiss francs), bought back 18.4 million francs in debt for CHF 13.8 million. Alrov Real Estate will be posting a capital gain of CHF 3.4 million on the transactions in its third-quarter report. The loans had been used to buy five properties in Switzerland. (Yuval Maoz)

In other Alrov Real Estate news, one of the group companies reported selling a property, a shopping center called Epic 13, in Switzerland. The company expects to record a post-tax capital gain of CHF 1.25 million, or about NIS 4.4 million. (Yuval Maoz)

Development company Reisdor has sold a mall in Elad for NIS 70 million, to Pama Investments. Reisdor says its returns on the deal are around 8.7%. The Reisdor center opened this March. (Raz Smolsky)

Nova Measuring Instruments managed to break even, even though quarterly sales slid 37% year over year (but were up 22% against the first quarter). For the second quarter of 2009, the company reported revenues of $7 million yesterday. However, it savaged operating costs, cutting them from $5.7 million to $3 million. That reduced its operating loss from $1.3 million in the parallel quarter of 2008 to $137,000 in the last quarter. The company lost a net $1.3 million or 7 cents per share, compared with losing $1.7 million or 9 cents per share in the corresponding quarter of last year. The company commented that its business improved by all parameters during the quarter, and it expects a considerable improvement in the second half of 2009. (Nir Zalik)