Who is the buyer?

Zaki Rakib is best known in Israeli circles for his high-tech investments, in particular cable modem manufacturer Terayon.

Rakib founded Terayon together with his brother Shlomo in 1993. At its peak, Terayon was trading on the Nasdaq exchange at a market valuation of $6 billion. But after the brothers failed to turn the firm into a communications giant that investors were evidently envisioning, they wound up selling Terayon in 2007 to Motorola for $140 million. The Rakibs wanted to be the Israeli Cisco and spent $932 million on buying up other high-tech firms.

In 2004 Terayon moved from cable modems to digital video.

The brothers have invested in a number of other Israeli startups such as Novafora, which set out to develop video chips and went belly-up in the last quarter of 2009, and Nvidia, which is working on graphics processing technology.

At present Zaki Rakib is setting up a new investment fund with Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes, the sister of Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes. The fund is slated to invest in media, communications and healthcare firms. But both Rakib and Nir-Mozes say there is no connection between the fund and his investment in Maariv.

Rakib's name has been mentioned over the years as a potential buyer for the cellular services company Partner Communications or the phone company 012 Smile, and he owns one of Israel's most expensive homes, in Herzliya Pituah. He considered buying soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv, but changed his mind at the last minute.