Mr. Benjamin (Benny) David Gaon, is the founder of B. Gaon Holdings Ltd. ("Gaon Holdings"), one of the Israeli largest holdings companies. Gaon Holdings main objectives are the promotion of investments in various industries in Israel, the Middle East and throughout the world. Its activities encompass four main sectors: Financial services; Agro-Industries; Wholesale and Retail and Real Estate.
Since June 2007 Gaon Holdings is a public company traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Since Gaon Holdings incorporation till it death on May 10, 2008, Mr. Gaon was its President and Chairman.
Prior to assuming his present positions, Mr. Gaon served as President and CEO of Koor Industries, Israel’s largest and most profitable industrial enterprise. Within three short years after being appointed CEO in May 1988, Gaon turned a company with $1.4 billion in debt, negative shareholder equity and losses exceeding $400 million, into the flagship of the Israeli economy, with a market value of $2 billion with annual sales of around $4 billion. Koor industries was taken public on the New York Stock Exchange while under the direction of Mr. Gaon with an offering of $400 million, which was handled by leading firms including Smith Barney and Lehman Brothers in the US and UBS in Europe. Mr. Gaon retired from Koor on July 1, 1998.
Before joining Koor, Mr. Gaon was the President and CEO of the Co-Op Blue Square Consumers’ Corporation Ltd. From the time he joined, in 1982, until his departure in 1988, he took a nearly bankrupt organization, tripled its annual sales to more than $500 million, and turned it into Israel’s largest and most profitable supermarket and retailing chain.
Following the Camp David accords, Mr. Gaon established a Koor trade office in Egypt, the first Israeli company to do so. In later years, while heading Koor Industries, Mr. Gaon continued his trailblazing approach to establishing links between Israel and its neighbors. Under his tutelage, Koor entered into a series of joint ventures with Jordanian and other Arab partners, hosted corporate leaders from Oman and Qatar, and became the exclusive supplier of cement and steel to the Palestinian National Authority. In 1996, Mr. Gaon headed the first official Israeli business delegation to visit Indonesia, the world’s largest Moslem nation.
During the following years Mr. Gaon also served as Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Economic Ties with Arab Countries at the Manufacturers Association of Israel.
Mr. Gaon public interest positions included President of The Israeli Cancer Association, Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Economic Ties with Arab Countries at the Manufacturers Association of Israel, he served on the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Tel-Aviv University, Chairman of the America-Israel Friendship League, Chairman of the Moshe David Gaon Center for Ladino Culture and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Sami Shamoon College of Engineering in Beer Sheva.
Mr. Gaon received the President’s Award from the Manufacturers Association of Israel, the Max Perlman Award for Excellence in Global Business Management and the Romansiaro Award for Economics from Tel Aviv University, and the International Partnership Award from the California-Israel Chamber of Commerce. The Prime Minister, the Mayor of Jerusalem and the International Forum for United Jerusalem appointed him Guardian of Jerusalem.
10/03/2010
from Pionet