Fourth Week at Thomson Reuters

In my fourth week here at Thomson Reuters I finalized my research that involved portfolio managers from around the world. As I have discussed last week, my research involved these five basic questions:

1. What are your thoughts about investing in the Israeli equities markets? (banking, chemicals, high-tech, bio-tech & telecom)
2. With the recent MSCI upgrade to developed market status, are you now doing due-diligences on Israeli equities?
3. What are the biggest challenges/obstacles for investing in Israeli equities?
4. Are you focused on companies that have a majority of their Revenue in Israel (banks and telecom) or foreign revenue?
5. Do you feel that you have enough access to management/information on Israel corporations?

What I have found on the whole cannot be written down here due to confidentiality reasons, but one thing can be said about this project, which is the fact that I had really enjoyed talking to so many important people, which hold key positions in different companies that are spread globally. I must admit though to the fact that it was quite hard getting a hold of many of the people with which I spoke to (and at times quite frustrating) but once I got through, the conversations I had were really eye-opening and interesting as to how different global companies think and act based on what is essentially the same given ‘scenario’.

In addition, later during the week me and the rest of the Tamid group here in Israel attended Erev Shabbat dinner with Jonathan Medved and his family. Jonathan Medved is the Chief Executive Officer and Director of Vringo, which is more commonly known as the video ringtone company. Medved’s family was extremely nice to all of us, and the dinner itself went great, as we had a chance to discuss many of Tamid’s goals and aspirations as well as our very own personal internships here in Israel.

Later on that night, it was also the first time we all got to enjoy a night out together in Jerusalem as we sat down at a local pub. This last weekend was really fun and I can’t wait for the next one.