Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:05, 22 January 2025

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Yitzhak Swary" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Yitzhak (Itzik) Swary (born 1946) is an Israeli accountant, Appraiser, professor emeritus of management at Tel Aviv University and chairman of the board of directors of the Allied Group (he:קבוצת אלייד). He served as deputy director of the Israel Tax Authority and as head of the Bank of Israel's operations in the development market. He founded the Joseph Cassirer Institute for Accounting Research at the Tel Aviv University.

Biography

Yitzhak Swary was born in Iraq in 1946, and at the age of four immigrated to Israel with his family. He grew up and was educated in Ramat Gan. Swary was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1964, and at the same time he enrolled in evening academic studies. In 1970, he graduated cum laude from his bachelor's degree in economics at Tel Aviv University, and in 1973, he graduated cum laude from his master's degree in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the age of 33, he received a doctorate from the University of Rochester in New York State. In the 1980s, he was appointed associate professor and head of the accounting department at the Hebrew University and later became a professor at Tel Aviv University. At the same time, he developed a professional and business career in the public sector - first he was in charge of the Bank of Israel's open market operations, and then served as a member of the Committee for Taxation under Inflation Conditions in Israel, and as Deputy Commissioner of the Israeli Income Tax. In this position, he was responsible for the revolutionary law for taxation under inflation conditions.

Between 1982 and 1990, he served as a visiting professor and lectured on finance and banking at New York University and Columbia University in New York.

In 1986, Swary moved to the private sector, joining as a partner the Somekh-Chaikin accounting firm. He took on the largest case of the period - the recovery plan for "Koor Industries" (he:כור תעשיות), the flagship company of the Histadrut (Israel's largest workers union at the time) until the 1990s. The banks, the company's major creditors, hired Swary to supervise it on their behalf. At the same time, he was appointed by the Israeli government as supervisor of the recovery plan for Clalit Health Services (he:שירותי בריאות כללית), 1988, and was responsible for its implementation while supervising the fund and its activities.

Swary left Somekh-Chaikin in 1989, following differences of opinion. The firm he founded, "Yitzhak Swary & Co.", became one of the leaders in the field of economic consulting. It dealt with economic consulting, valuations, management of struggling companies, accounting, economics, and finance. In 2015, following Yitzhak Swary's retirement from the firm, the name was changed to "Cognum Financial Consulting Ltd."

Alongside his professional and academic work, Swary served as a director in influential bodies and was a member of many public committees, including the Ben-Basat Committee for Direct Tax Reform (he:ועדת בן בסט (מיסים)). He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange; A member of the Advisory Committee to the Bank of Israel; A member of the Academic Committee of the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Studies, and from 1990 to 1992 he served as Chairman of the Institute's Executive Board; Chaired the Committee for Examining Debts of the Kibbutz communities (1996); Chaired the Committee for Examining Balancing Grants in Local Government (1994); Chaired the Committee for Examining the Plan for Establishing an Airport near Nevatim as a Supplement to Ben Gurion Airport (1995); and many other committees. Over the years, he acquired expertise in banking matters and dedicated his doctoral thesis to the subject. He advised most banks on mergers and acquisitions related to them, and was even drafted into the reserves to prepare for the privatization of Bank Otsar Ha-Hayyal.

In 1990, he was appointed head of the Joseph Cassirer Institute for Accounting Research within the Recanati Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University. He was a member of the steering committee of the "Initiative for Applied Research in Education" program of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Ministry of Education, and the Yad Hanadiv Foundation.

In 1996 Swary developed a formula, which came into wide use, for determining the price of products under price control.

In 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered him the position of Governor of the Bank of Israel, following a recommendation received from a committee whose members included the Director General of the Prime Minister's Office, Ilan Cohen, and the Director General of the Ministry of Finance, Dr. Yossi Bachar (CPA). After much deliberation, Swary decided not to accept the position.

In 2005, he founded (with Zvi Yochman and Nir Dagan) SKY Israel Private Equity Fund, an investment fund. In 1992, he was elected as one of five trustees managing A.G. TRUST (Aaron Gutwirt Trust) and in 2006, he was elected chairman of the trust and became the acting director of the Allied Group (founded in the 1960s by the financier Aaron Gutwirt). Under his management, the group became a major economic entity, engaged in business acquisitions in Israel. The group is currently involved in companies operating in the fields of infrastructure, commercial real estate, automotive, logistics, electrical products, the Environment, insurance and pensions. The companies owned by the group include Champion Motors, Pery Leasing, Autodeal, Metropolis, Maman Cargo, United Parcel Service Israel, Carmel Tunnels, Newpan, Miniline, Negev Ecology, Carmelton, Amcoll, Scala, Pelagi Maym, Menora Mivtachim Holdings, and more. In addition, the group acquired about a third of Eli Rosenberg's rights in the gas company Avner Oil Exploration for about $40 million. In August 2018, he sold most of Allied's holdings in the Ashtrom Group, thus ending Aaron Gutwirt's historic investment in the company.

Swary has authored numerous books and articles in his fields of expertise, including banking, dividend distribution, mergers and acquisitions, buyouts, and financial deregulation. The books are being used by researchers and students in the fields of economics.

Although Yitzhak Swary is highly regarded professionally and academically, the field of valuations of economic entities in which he specializes is considered to be controversial, due to the large differences in valuations by various experts. Several of his valuations have received sharp professional criticism. The most controversial of these was the one he conducted for the gas company Delek Drilling (now NewMed Energy), regarding the appropriate royalties due to the State of Israel, on which Yitzhak Tshuva relied in a dispute over the rate and scope of gas royalties expected for the State of Israel as a result of the production of gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea.

Philanthropic activities

In 2013, Swary retired from the firm he founded and that bears his name. Since then, he has focused on building the Allied Group, and no longer engages in preparing valuations. In addition to Allied's business activities, part of its activities are dedicated to philanthropy. In 2023, the group led by Swary decided to make a large donation to establish a new medical school at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The Weizmann Institute announced in April 2024 that the Allied Group had donated 400 million shekels for the school, which will train physician-researchers over a seven-year period of study, and will award its graduates MD-PhD degrees.

Personal life

Swary is married to Adiya, father of three, and lives in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv. His son, Etgar (Gary) Swary, is designated as Yitzhak's successor.

Books

• Capital Adequacy Requirements and Bank Holding Companies. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1980.
• Mergers and Acquisitions in the U.S. Banking Industry. Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam, the Netherlands 1990 (with Gabriel Hawawini).
• Global Financial Deregulation: Commercial Banking at the Crossroads. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, England 1991 (with Barry Topf).
• Aspects of Dividend Policy: In Light of the “New” Company Law (Hebrew). Globes Publishers, 1999 (with Moshe Bareket and Dan Givoly).
• Aspects of Share Repurchase: In Light of the “New” Company Law (Hebrew). Globes Publishers, 2002 (with Allon Raveh and Daniel Paserman).