Israeli Businessman Nochi Dankner Found Guilty of Stock Manipulation
Jasmin Gueta, 04 July 2016
Nochi Dankner, who was for a decade one of the most powerful business tycoons in Israel, was found guilty on Monday of stock manipulation and other securities-related offenses.
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In a 280-page decision, Judge Khaled Kabub of the Tel Aviv District Court found Dankner guilty of all the charges that had been brought against him, which centered on his manipulating the share price of his publicly traded IDB Holding Corporation ahead of a secondary offering of its shares in February 2012. Dankner consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Dankner was also charged with failure to publish financial statements on a timely basis and for publishing misleading information in the prospectus issued ahead of the IDB offering, which raised 321 million shekels ($83 million at current exchange rates).
Itay Strum, an investment banker and associate of Dankner’s, who had been charged with executing Dankner’s directives, was found guilty as well. The charges against Dankner, originally filed in 2014, relate to events behind the scenes of the share sale, which subsequently won the sarcastic soubriquet the “friends’ offering” because Dankner encouraged associates to buy IDB stock. Prosecutors said Dankner did that in order to artifcially raise the value of IDB shares traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, thereby enabling the company to raise more capital.
