Horizon Investment House Goes Public via 40 Million Shekel Shell Merger

The local capital market boom has brought 21 new companies to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since the beginning of the year, joining through initial public offerings at a combined valuation of 30 billion shekels. This is a record figure for the local stock exchange since the IPO wave that swept it in 2021 under the auspices of the coronavirus crisis. Alongside this, several entrepreneurs chose to join the stock exchange through the back door by introducing activity into an existing public shell.

One of those entrepreneurs is Itai Lipkovitz, founder of the relatively small investment house Horizon, which announced toward the end of last week a deal to be acquired by the public shell Blue Wave (formerly the cannabis company Pharmocan), currently led by businessman Yariv Lerner. The acquisition will be carried out for 40 million shekels, in stages and over two years, with the acquiring party expected to raise the funds through equity offerings.

This is a handsome exit for Lipkovitz, who holds all the shares of the investment house he founded in 2010 and which currently manages assets in the volume of about 2 billion shekels.

Strategic Partnership and Technological Growth

"I did not prepare a prospectus and had no plans to make the investment house public at this stage, but the opportunity came my way and I decided to go for it," Lipkovitz says in a conversation with Globes. "I met Blue Wave upon the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance and their people seemed right to me, their technology interested me. I also liked the synergy with Yariv, who is an excellent partner and will bring a lot of experience and can contribute immensely."

As part of the move, Lerner, a well-known figure in the local market who is among the controlling shareholders in public companies Queenco, Negev Ceramics, and Liam Engineering, is expected to become the dominant shareholder in Horizon. Additionally, Lerner is one of the controlling shareholders in the telecommunications company Wecom, which is expected to be sold to Cellcom for 265 million shekels. Alongside him, Lipkovitz will be able to retain about 20% of the investment house's shares and continue to be a dominant shareholder in the company he founded and manages.

"I think bringing in the right strategic partners is a natural development for an investment house that is growing and wants to improve and be better," Lipkovitz says. "Until today I was the sole shareholder, and now they will enter, and there are things they will know how to do better than me. Basically, I plan to deal more with investment strategy, because now I will have good partners who can help me with the ongoing management of the investment house."

AI Integration and Financial Performance

Managing the merged Blue Wave is expected to be Boaz Erez, who joined Horizon late last year after previously serving as an analyst at the American bank Merrill Lynch and the investment house Teltan, and advising Harel Insurance. Erez was brought to Horizon to manage the subsidiary 24/6, which engages in the development and operation of software for algorithmic trading in the foreign exchange market.

Lipkovitz also notes that Blue Wave is developing AI technology designed for the capital market for monitoring and supervision. "We will examine how to implement its tools and technologies in the field to improve decision-making processes using artificial intelligence, I think this is everyone's race today and the thing that will help us stand at the forefront of the field."

Horizon ended 2025 with revenues of about 15 million shekels, an increase of about 52% compared to the parallel period. On the bottom line, the house presented a jump of more than 2 times in net profit to about 3.5 million shekels. "Our mechanism is much leaner and our costs are lower than investment houses in the center, which allows us to be very efficient," Lipkovitz emphasizes.