George Horesh acquires 45% of Dyson vacuum cleaner importer

George Horesh is expanding the Union Group’s retail business. “Calcalist” has learned that Union, which it owns, is purchasing about 45% of Dyson’s importer to Israel B.N.Z.K. Trade and distribution controlled by the Cohen family.

BNZK is Israel’s official importer of vacuum cleaners, hair straighteners, hair dryers and fans Dyson. As far as is known, the value of the company in the transaction is about NIS 70-80 million.

Horesh is the richest man in Israel and his fortune is estimated at billions of shekels. Union Investment and Development’s business, which dominates Horesh’s energy and trading business, includes, among other things, Holdings in the Super Pharm chain (33%), in the fashion chain H&M in Israel, in the discounted goods chain Daiso and in the industrial gas company Maxima, which was previously traded on the stock exchange, as well as in the Dalia Energy company which merged with the kibbutzim farms.

Horesh, who passed the bulk of his fortune on to his children, also owns real estate worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Israel and Europe. In Israel, he owns, among other things, land in an area of ​​about 180 dunams in the Nir Zvi industrial area, part of the “Zerifin Complex”. Horesh keeps his activities under to the radar as much as possible. His investment activity has been managed for years by Eyal Golan.

Last May it was revealed in “Calcalist” that Horesh recruited Ronen Barel, who served as chairman of the largest accounting firm in Israel Ernst & Young (EY) to serve as chairman of Union Investments.

The B.N.Z.K. Founded by Zvi Cohen in 1994, the company specializes in importing, selling and servicing Dyson products in Israel. The company’s sales are estimated at NIS 150-200 million per year.

Although the company encounters aggressive parallel imports – the market share of the official Dyson importer in Israel is more than 60%, which is higher than its average market share in the world. The company is managed by Eric Cohen, Zvi’s son.

The founder Zvi Cohen serves as the chairman of the company and his son Eric reached a senior position at Bank Hapoalim and returned in recent years to the position of CEO, and he is the one who led the sale of the shares to Horesh.

As the owner of one-third of Super Pharm’s shares, Horesh may work for collaborations between the Pharm chain and Dyson, through promotions and possibly also points of sale in the Pharm chain.

Dyson, is a British manufacturer of vacuum cleaners that produces electric, wireless household vacuum cleaners without a replacement bag – a field in which its dominance in Israel is absolute. In addition, the company produces vacuum cleaners for pets, hair straighteners and air filters. The world’s vacuum cleaner market was dominated until 2006 by the American company Hoover, which was a generic name for the product and controlled more than 50% of the world’s market. Hoover, established in 1907, lost its position as the world’s strongest brand in the field to Dyson.

In 2002, British James Dyson invented the first vacuum cleaner without a replacement bag. The new vacuum cleaner took a bite out of Hoover’s market share and overtook it in 2005 when it crossed 20% of the market share of vacuum cleaners in the world compared to 13% of Hoover, which was put up for sale after losing its status as a monopoly. Dyson conquered the market and established its position as the new Hoover.