Israeli Businessman Nochi Dankner Gets Jail Term for Stock Fraud

(Bloomberg) -- Nochi Dankner, once one of Israel’s most influential business tycoons, was sentenced to two years in jail after being found guilty of stock manipulation, a Tel Aviv court ruled.

Dankner, former controlling shareholder of IDB Holding Corp., was given 24 months in prison and a fine of 800,000 shekels ($209,000), according to an e-mailed statement Monday from the Tel Aviv District Economic Court. The former business mogul was convicted in July of helping to push up IDB’s share price days before a securities issuance in February 2012.

Dankner, whose family made its fortune in table salt and real estate, lost control of IDB, one of the country’s largest holding companies, in 2014 after struggling with billions of shekels in debt in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Argentine businessman Eduardo Elsztain has since attained control of IDB and its subsidiaries.

IDB holds shares in Discount Investment Corp., which owns stakes in Cellcom Ltd., Israel’s largest cellular operator by subscribers, and Shufersal Ltd., the country’s biggest supermarket chain. The Tel Aviv-based conglomerate also owns Clal Insurance Enterprise Enterprise Holdings Ltd., one of the country’s leading insurers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sharon Wrobel in Tel Aviv at swrobel4@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Samuel Potter at spotter33@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Mark Williams