CEO Sells Shares After Analyst Stock Surges 540%

After a 540% jump in the share price of investment house Analyst over the past three years, Analyst CEO Itzik Shnidovsky, 57, sold half a percent of the company’s shares at NIS 153 per share, close to the stock’s all-time high, in an off-exchange transaction. He received NIS 8.4 million for the shares. He will continue to hold 0.8% of the company’s shares, worth more than NIS 16 million.

Shnidovsky completed share sales over the past year totaling about NIS 13 million. To sell the current tranche, his largest so far, he waited for the stock to return to peak prices. Earlier, since the beginning of the year, the stock had lost 30% of its value, and Shnidovsky waited for the price to climb back up.

Shnidovsky joins the controlling shareholders in the company, Shmuel Lav and Ehud Shiloni, who sold shares last year for NIS 21.2 million each. They did so when the company was valued at NIS 1.4 billion, and since then their combined wealth has increased by another NIS 266 million. However, for the controlling shareholders, this is a relatively small sum compared with their holdings in the company. Shiloni and Lav each hold 26.9% of Analyst’s shares, worth NIS 528 million apiece.

Analyst is active mainly in provident funds, mutual funds and portfolio management, and does not manage pension funds, for example. Its total assets now stand at NIS 126 billion, a meteoric increase in recent years. By comparison, in 2021 it managed total assets of only NIS 23 billion, a growth of 5.5 times in just a few years.

In its fastest-growing segment, provident funds, which include study funds, investment provident funds and savings for every child, it managed NIS 93 billion at the end of May, making it the fifth-largest provident fund company in Israel, compared with NIS 16 billion in 2021. In mutual funds, Analyst manages NIS 26 billion, and in portfolio management another NIS 7 billion.

Shnidovsky joined Analyst in 2009, after leaving the investment house Meitav. At Meitav he held a range of positions and reached the role of co-CEO. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the College of Management Academic Studies and a master’s degree in business administration from Ben-Gurion University. Last year, his compensation cost was NIS 4.2 million, including NIS 1.3 million in salary, NIS 2.76 million in shares, and a NIS 150,000 payment in shares.