Phoenix Financial

The group’s insurance business has operated in Israel for more than 75 years, and as of 2026 the group counts 76 years of activity. The insurance business is run by the wholly owned subsidiary Phoenix Insurance Company Ltd., covering compulsory motor and property insurance, home and business insurance, life insurance and savings, work disability coverage, private and group health insurance and travel insurance, and it operates the direct property and casualty platform Phoenix Smart.⁠[1][2][3][1][1][1][1][1]

On July 16, 2024, the U.S. funds Centerbridge Partners and Gallatin Point, which had controlled Phoenix, signed an agreement to sell 16.48% of the shares to various investors at NIS 37.5 per share; the buyers included Delek Group (which bought 4.9% and soon resold it at a profit), Lazard, Riverwood Capital, Highbridge Capital founder Henry Swieca, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. Affinity bought 4.95% for NIS 466 million, along with an option to buy another 4.95% at the same price. In October and at the end of November of that year, Centerbridge and Gallatin sold their remaining holdings to other investors in Israel and abroad, and Phoenix became a company without a controlling shareholder. At the time Phoenix managed about NIS 500 billion in assets, earned NIS 1.28 billion in the first nine months of 2024 and had a market value of about NIS 14.7 billion, making it Israel’s largest insurance company.⁠[4][4][5][5][4][4][5][4][4][4][4]

On January 15, 2025, the last day before the option expired, Israel’s Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority approved Affinity’s exercise of the option, raising its stake to about 9.9% and making it Phoenix’s largest shareholder, ahead of the peers Harel and Clal, which had previously held the largest stakes; the regulator limited Affinity’s voting rights to 5%. Affinity said its holding was financial rather than managerial, though it might gain the right to appoint one director; it had earlier explored buying 25% of Phoenix’s insurance agencies at a $1 billion valuation before ending the talks. At the time the company’s chief executive officer was Eyal Ben Simon and its chairman was Benny Gabai (Benjamin Gabbay).⁠[5][5][4][6][4][4][7][4][8]

On January 20, 2025, Phoenix announced that the former controlling shareholders Centerbridge Partners and Gallatin Point Capital had completed their sale: over the six months from July 2024 to January 2025, international funds and Israeli institutions bought the two funds’ shares, totaling 31% of the company, while the remaining 69% continued to be held by a diverse group of global and local investors; Affinity Partners bought nearly 10%, and after the transactions international investors held more than 30% of the shares in aggregate. Chairman Benjamin Gabbay and CEO Eyal Ben Simon said the two funds had been terrific partners as controlling shareholders over the previous five years and that the exit left the company with a more diversified ownership structure; Kushner said his July 2024 investment in Phoenix was rooted in his belief in Israel’s resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix’s business.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9]

In October 2025, Oren Mizrach Insurance Agency, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Phoenix, agreed to acquire the entire share capital of Wobi Insurance Agency for about NIS 140 million; the Israel Competition Authority approved the deal in May 2026, and as of the publication of the first-half 2026 report the Capital Market Authority’s approval was still pending.⁠[3][3]

On November 26, 2025, Phoenix Financial (formerly The Phoenix Holdings) reported third-quarter results: insurance service revenue of NIS 2.49 billion for the quarter, comprehensive profit attributable to shareholders of NIS 803 million, comprehensive profit of NIS 2.3 billion for the first nine months, up 40% year on year, and NIS 585 billion in assets under management at quarter end. CEO Eyal Ben Simon said performance had reached the target range the company had set for 2027, and the company then published medium-term targets for 2028: a return on equity above 25% and core annual profit of NIS 3.3–3.5 billion, of which NIS 1.9–2.1 billion from insurance and NIS 1.3–1.5 billion from asset management.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10][10][10]

On December 28, 2025, Phoenix and the U.S. alternative asset manager Blackstone announced a strategic partnership to collaborate across credit strategies including corporate, real estate and asset-based credit, with Phoenix investing up to $5 billion across those strategies. The two described Phoenix as the largest asset manager in Israel, with more than $180 billion in assets under management; CEO Eyal Ben Simon was identified in the announcement as CEO of Phoenix Holdings.⁠[11][12][12][12][12]

In February 2026, Phoenix’s subsidiary Phoenix Advanced Investments completed the acquisition of 30% of Fidelis Partners Holdings, a family office providing wealth management for Israeli high-net-worth individuals, for about NIS 32 million (first phase); the agreement provides for gradually increasing the holding to about 90% over eight years and includes a call option on a further 31% exercisable through December 31, 2026. The company thereby controls Fidelis and consolidates it.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3]

In May 2026, Phoenix Services, a newly established wholly owned subsidiary of Phoenix, completed the acquisition of 64.85% of BUYME Technologies on a fully diluted basis, at a company valuation of NIS 840 million; the parties also entered into option arrangements that, if exercised, would give Phoenix Services full ownership of BUYME.⁠[3][3][3][3]

According to its first-half 2026 report, Phoenix Financial is a broad financial services platform operating in Israel whose shares are included in the TA-35 and MSCI Israel indices. Its business is divided into insurance and asset management activities across seven reportable segments: insurance comprises property and casualty, health, and life and savings, while asset management comprises retirement, wealth and investments, brokers and advisors, and payments and financing. Asset management is conducted mainly through subsidiaries including Phoenix Pension & Provident, Phoenix Investment House, Phoenix Capital Partners, Phoenix Brokers and Phoenix Gama.⁠[3][2][3][3][3][3]

As of June 30, 2026, the company had more than NIS 658 billion in assets under management, about $217 billion (the company also presents a figure of about $220 billion), and served more than 3 million clients, with more than $160 billion in its asset management business. Comprehensive income for the first half of 2026 was about NIS 1.57 billion, with an annualized return on equity of about 26% and shareholders’ equity of NIS 13.1 billion. The company said its average dividend yield in 2021–2025 was about 5.5% and plans to raise combined dividends and buybacks to at least 55% of comprehensive income.⁠[3][13][2][14][13][15][3][3]

On July 28, 2026, Affinity sold about 2.5% of Phoenix’s shares, a quarter of its holding, through Jefferies to three international institutional investors at NIS 168.5 per share for about NIS 1.05 billion; the largest buyer was Fidelity Investments, an existing shareholder. Affinity’s stake fell to 7.4%, and it remained the largest shareholder. Phoenix’s market value was then about NIS 44 billion, its share price had risen about 420% since Affinity invested, foreign investors held about 40% of its shares, and it was Israel’s largest institutional financial group by both market capitalization and assets under management; its assets under management had grown from about NIS 480 billion at the end of June 2024 to about NIS 623 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2026. Before the deal, CEO Eyal Ben Simon met global investors in New York.⁠[16][17][18][16][16][18][19][17][20][17][17][17]

On October 1, 2026, CNN published an investigation based on partial holdings records that Phoenix files quarterly with Israeli regulators under financial transparency rules, finding that Phoenix held at least $265 million, or at least 0.6%, of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, as well as stakes in military drone camera maker Next Vision (more than $68 million), artillery shell electronic fuze producer Reshef Technologies (at least $40 million), Israel Shipyards, tank component supplier Ashot Ashkelon (more than 10%), Boeing, Caterpillar and others, nine companies in all that provide equipment to the Israeli military; some of the stakes predated Affinity becoming the largest shareholder. Two Israeli forensic accountants who reviewed the records concluded they were Phoenix’s holdings, but that they covered only one part of its portfolio, excluding retirement accounts and stakes held through mutual funds, corporate bonds and other securities. Phoenix did not comment on the findings, but a spokesperson said the company is “regulated” and that shareholder value derives primarily from operating performance rather than investment returns; some of its public holdings records were labeled inconsistently, and the company declined to explain this.⁠[21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21][21]

On October 2, Kushner responded on X that Phoenix is not a defense company but one of Israel’s largest publicly traded financial institutions, highly regulated and managing about $220 billion across thousands of investments, the Israeli equivalent of Vanguard or Fidelity that manages the retirement savings of millions of Israelis, and that he has no role in deciding what Phoenix buys or sells; CNN said it stood by its findings. CNN’s follow-up investigation on October 6 also found that U.S. public pension funds including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System hold stock in Phoenix or Elbit.⁠[22][22][22][23][24]

Phoenix Financial: Official website: https://phoenixfinancial.co.il/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

Phoenix Insurance Company: Official website: https://www.fnx.co.il/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/phoenixholdings (opens in a new window)⁠[2]