An Israeli at work in the building industry. Photo: AJN file
GIL KOL
TEL AVIV — Around 10 per cent of employees in Israel don’t plan to take any holidays this year, according to a new poll.
The poll was conducted by Vaadim, a company which consolidates data on the economic and social activities of workers’ unions in Israel.
It points to a 40 per cent rise in workaholics in Israel compared to last year.
Vaadim says this places Israel on par with the US and Japan, which share a similar percentage of workaholics. The global average is 4.5 per cent.
The company attributes the increase in workaholics to the economic crisis of 2009, and says many employees began to work harder as a result of the crisis in a bid to prevent their employers from laying them off.
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Businessman Shai Agassi. Photo: AJN file
NEW YORK — A California-based electric car venture working in Israel has received the largest-ever funding deal in clean-tech investment.
Project Better Place, headed by Israeli-American Shai Agassi, this week signed a funding deal under which a consortium of investors will invest $350 million, according to reports.
The list of investors is led by HSBC, which invested $125 million, as well as Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Lazard Asset Management. Better Place’s original investors include Israeli companies and VantagePoint Venture Partners in Silicon Valley.
The company, founded in 2007, is now valued at $1.25 billion. Better Place has raised approximately $700 million from investors.
Better Place will make its commercial debut in Israel and Denmark in 2011.
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Supermodel Bar Refaeli. Photo: AJN file
GAD LIOR
JERUSALEM — Supermodel Bar Refaeli recently filed a request to stop paying taxes in Israel, claiming she spends most of her time abroad and that “the centre of my life is no longer in Israel”.
It is in the Israeli Tax Authority’s interest that Bar Refaeli continue paying her taxes in Israel, but a source said that her request cannot be turned down as she does not stay in Israel more than six months every year and most of her income is generated from her work abroad.
According to estimates, Refaeli has earned about $2 million in the past two years, for which she was meant to pay income tax of more than NIS 3.5 million (47 per cent tax in 2008 and 46 per cent in 2009).
In addition, she was forced to pay national insurance in Israel, and because the tax ceiling was removed last year, for each dollar Refaeli earned she was meant to pay 12 more cents for national insurance and health insurance in Israel –- an extra NIS 250,000.
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OMER KABIR
NEW YORK — Two Israelis living in New York have created a storm through an iPhone application they have developed.
Their idea has become a hit, thanks to a little Israeli chutzpah and a relatively simply application that allows users to locate the closest broken parking meter along with detailed directions on how to get to it. This is no trivial issue.
According to city ordinances, it is legal to park at a broken meter for one hour without paying, making this application a vital one in city where parking prices can reach $500 or more a month.
Behind the application, called NYC Broken Meters, are Raviv Turner, a native Israeli and former officer in the Armored Corps who has been living in New York City for the past eight years, and his partner Ilya Levin.
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Tel Aviv skyline. Photo: Peter Haskin
NEW YORK — Israel is the most attractive country in the Middle East for venture capital and private equity investment, according to a new survey.
Israel comfortably beat regional competitors United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to rank 22nd overall in The Global Venture Capital and Private Equity Country Attractiveness Index, which was published on November 23 by global accountants Ernst & Young.
The index measures a country’s attractiveness to outside investors based on its social, cultural and economic environment, taxation, governance and business infrastructure.
Israel showed a major improvement in taxation since the first survey four years ago and also scored high marks for fostering entrepreneurial opportunities.
But Israel slipped in the human and social categories as a result of an unstable security situation.
JTA
Zac Chester decorates a Rosh Hashanah card at the Access Shop. Photo: Peter Haskin
DALIA SABLE
ACCESS Inc is set to receive a $10,000 grant from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation.
As part of the Foundation’s Celebration of Giving event, the funds will be directed toward the organisation’s two-day program run from the Access Shop in Caulfield North.
“It is an honour to receive a grant from this foundation,” Access Inc president Deena Goldbloom said. “In our application, we directed the request for funds to enhance our two-day program that we run at the Access shop.”
The cheque will be handed over in a ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall in a few weeks and will be accepted by Goldbloom and president of the Access Fundraising Group Lenny Gross.
Goldbloom said she was “pleased that Access is seen as a worthy beneficiary of funds in the broader community”.
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From left: Shane Jacobson, Shana Levine and Paul Hogan ... Levine’s production company has just produced the movie Charlie & Boots.
DEBORAH BLASHKI-MARKS INTERVIEWS FILM PRODUCER SHANA LEVINE
EVERY production company is different. We have four partners in the business, some casual administration staff and we employ crew according to each project.
There are often 100 or more employed people per film, including actors, directors, cinematographers, caterers etc.
I was in Los Angeles recently and it was a bit like being in Entourage. Every second person in the film industry seems Jewish, but here in Australia there are relatively few Jewish people involved in the industry.
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David Langsam
AHRON SHAPIRO
TWO members of Melbourne’s Jewish community are part of a group that used an Israeli template to prepare a proposal that may shape a new government program to commercialise scientific research in Australia.
David Langsam, editor of the online Biotech Daily, and Alan Finkel, chancellor of Monash University, are two of the eight signatories to the proposal for the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute (CCI) to be submitted by the Biotechnology and Related Industries Leadership (BRIL) group in the coming days.
Included in the 2009 Federal Budget and announced by Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Kim Carr in May, the CCI will deliver a “radical new approach” to commercialising the best Australian research.
As well as supporting commercialisation of research, the institute will support commercial entities and help take their research and ideas to the marketplace.
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The Hakoah Club in Bondi. Photo: AJN file
ASHLEY BROWNE
THE future of the Hakoah Club remains unclear following an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the White City Tennis Club in Paddington.
Hakoah president Phil Filler refused to comment on speculation the club would close the doors of its premises in Hall Street, Bondi in November while it continues to search for a home elsewhere in the eastern suburbs.
“It wouldn’t be fair to say anything at the moment,” he said. “If there was anything major to announce, we’d call an extraordinary meeting of our members to break the news.”
Filler did confirm that some Hakoah staff had been retrenched earlier this year as the club prepared to move in a new direction.
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Heading the electric revolution ... entrepreneur and Better Place founder Shai Agassi. Photo: Cathy Ninio
LEXI LANDSMAN
THE electric revolution will change the world, according to Shai Agassi, the head of sustainable transport company Better Place.
Agassi is an entrepreneur and founder of Better Place -– a US-based company accelerating the global transition to sustainable transportation through building the infrastructure for electric vehicles. He spoke in Sydney at an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce luncheon last month at the Four Seasons Hotel to more than 400 senior business leaders.
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