The Israeli company that has built high-tech fences along the country’s volatile borders is now trying to build a bridge to US president-elect Donald Trump’s administration — hoping to use its experience to cash in on Trump’s plan to seal the border with Mexico.
Magal Security Systems Ltd has been a major player in building high-tech fences and walls along Israel’s volatile northern and southern borders, as well as the massive separation barrier that snakes along the frontier with the West Bank. Its products include cameras, sophisticated sensors, robots and software to operate the systems.
“We believe that the US government is going to increase its security budgets in the upcoming years and definitely we look forward to take part in it,” the company’s chief executive Saar Koursh said.
Investors seem to agree.
Despite a mixed record of profitability and a historically volatile stock, the company’s shares have surged on the NASDAQ since Trump was elected US president on Nov. 8, while trading volume has surged in some cases by more than 150 times the pre-election levels. Its shares were trading at US$5.53 apiece on Wednesday, up 24 percent from its US$4.45 closing price on Nov. 8.
Magal was established in 1965 as a branch of the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. It was privatized 15 years later and has traded on the NASDAQ since 1993. Magal has served customers in more than 80 countries, including airports, the seaport in Mombasa, Kenya, and sporting events and utilities.
With market capitalization below US$100 million, the company is much smaller than potential competitors, which could include major global electronics and construction firms, but it is a leader in a country that is in turn a global leader in the building of barriers.
Israeli defense officials confirmed Magal’s projects have included not only the West Bank barrier, but a 220km structure that has halted an influx of African migrants across the Egyptian border as well as a high-tech fence separating the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip from Israel.
Victor Bar-Gil, a former Israeli Ministry of Defense official who worked with Magal on a project to fortify the border with Lebanon, said the company did “very thorough and precise work.”
“It was work that had to be done really urgently. The military was withdrawing from Lebanon and a fence needed to be built very quickly and this fence was built,” he said.
Koursh believes that if the Mexico barrier is built, it will be similar to Israeli structures that include a combination of fences and walls equipped with cutting edge technology.
“It is dependent on so many factors, including the type of wall, the type of fence, [and] the type of sensors that you want to put on the fence [that] it’s hard for me to estimate but for sure this will be a mega project,” he said.
David Holtzman, a financial analyst at Israel’s First International Bank, said Magal is considered a world leader in the construction of security barriers, but cautioned that the run-up in its stock price is speculative.
“It is important to remember that currently we still do not know yet whether everything that Trump has promised prior to the election he will in fact carry out,” he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”