Insurance group The Phoenix Holdings Ltd. (TASE: PHOE1;PHOE5), whose investments are managed by EVP and chief investment manager Roy Yakir, is launching a fund that will enable parties outside the group to participate in deals made by its investment division for itself and its policyholders and pension and provident fund members. Sources inform "Globes" that the new fund will be called Phoenix Co-Invest. The fund is the first of its kind in Israel.
Phoenix is establishing the fund through Phoenix Investment Funds, managed by CEO Tali Shulevich Shalit. The fund is designed to enable investors outside the group to take part in investments by Phoenix in private equity deals and infrastructure. The fund is open only to qualified investors.
The new fund is now closing a NIS 150 financing round, its first. Its anchor investor is Hachshara Insurance Company, a smaller investment institution than Phoenix looking for alternative deals that has made several such deals independently. Other small institutions, higher education institutions, kibbutzim, and companies and individuals with surplus capital are also investing in the fund. Capital raising by the fund will continue in the coming months, which will further enlarge it.
"Private investors, insurance agents, and small investment institutions have been contacting Phoenix for years, seeking to join non-marketable investments. Because the Phoenix group has many deals with a surplus allocation, it decided to institute a regular attractive option for investing together with it," Shalit said.
Hachshara Insurance VP and investment manager Roi Kadosh said, "An investment of this type is part of an overall investment strategy aimed at enabling Hachshara Insurance to invest together with large entities in spheres in which it has never before invested." Hachshara Insurance's SVP and chief investment officer, also responsible for credit and real estate, is Yair Kaplan.
Phoenix manages over NIS 191 billion in assets. Phoenix has achieved the highest returns on its profit participation policies in the past five years and the second highest returns in the past 10 years.
This is the first time that an investment institution is opening its own investments to external investors. This fits in with what Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Authority Supervisor Moshe Bareket told "Globes": "I am taking action so that investment institutions will establish investment funds themselves, for example in infrastructure, high tech, and so forth, and will also offer investment management not only to their members, but also to the general public. These institutions have experience and a track record in investment management. They are regulated and stable."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 1, 2019
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