Businessman Aharon Frenkel is preparing another major value realization from his holdings, as UVision Air, the loitering munitions company he fully controls, is expected to file a prospectus for a Nasdaq initial public offering within the next month. The company is reportedly targeting a valuation of $3 billion to $3.5 billion, with the first prospectus likely to be published in July and the flotation planned after first-quarter results are available.
UVision had recently considered bringing in Israeli institutional investors as a pre-IPO step at similar valuations, but after those investors pushed for much lower prices, the company decided to proceed without them. Frenkel, who is expected to sell part of his stake in the offering, bought the company in 2011 for an estimated $110 million, making the planned listing a potentially large gain on an investment made about 15 years ago.
The company, based in Hefer Valley and employing more than 250 people, is said to have an order backlog of about $370 million. Its Hero family of advanced strike systems and loitering munitions is sold to more than 30 militaries and countries worldwide. UVision has been led for the past year and a half by Dr. Ran Gozali, formerly a senior executive at Rafael, and its chairman in recent years has been Ilan Giffman, a Frenkel associate who previously ran Aspa Group and now helps manage Frenkel's European real estate interests and serves as his director in Israeli investments.
Late last year, UVision signed a major $982 million, multi-year deal with the American company Mistral to supply loitering drones beginning in 2026. The U.S. contract includes procurement, integration into U.S. Army field forces, training, and ongoing maintenance. The U.S. selected the Hero 120 model, which has a maximum range of about 40 to 60 kilometers and can fly for roughly an hour, with electro-optical and infrared cameras that let operators see what the munition sees, adjust its course, or cancel the mission if civilians appear.
