Agassi's meteoric rise from the halls of the Israeli-M.I.T., Technion University, to the board rooms of global software conglomerate, SAP (NYSE: SAP), has been an inspirational story to a country chock-full of entrepreneurs. Agassi founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992. SAP acquired Agassi's company in April 2001 and Agassi was tapped for responsibility over the strategy of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software leader. Agassi recently left SAP to strike out on his own.
According to the Ha'aretz article, the cabinet's blessing will mean tax breaks, among other positives. Purchase tax on standard gasoline and diesel vehicles is 84%, which will drop to 79% on January 1. For more environmentally friendly hybrids the rate is only 30%, according to the article.
Agassi has hooked-up with Idan Ofer's Israel Corporation through their Project Better Place initiative. Ofer and other investors have pledged an initial investment of $200 million for infrastructure and the electric vehicles are slated to be produced by one or more car makers (Renault has already expressed an interest).
The plan, if approved, could turn Israel's economy into a paradigm for other countries trying to both protect the environment and reduce their dependency on oil. Clean energy is hot, especially solar power. Companies like First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) have soared in this years trading environment. There are even exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for investors to play the clean energy industry without taking on single-company risk. Check out the PowerShares WilderHills Clean Energy ETF (AMEX: PBW).
Agassi is the right person at the right time to apply what we at IsraelNewsletter.com like to call "Israel Ingenuity" to solve a major problem. I have my bets placed on him.
Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC., the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. The author doesn't own any positions mentioned in the article.
The plan, if approved, could turn Israel's economy into a paradigm for other countries trying to both protect the environment and reduce their dependency on oil. Clean energy is hot, especially solar power. Companies like First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) have soared in this years trading environment. There are even exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for investors to play the clean energy industry without taking on single-company risk. Check out the PowerShares WilderHills Clean Energy ETF (AMEX: PBW).
Agassi is the right person at the right time to apply what we at IsraelNewsletter.com like to call "Israel Ingenuity" to solve a major problem. I have my bets placed on him.
Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC., the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. The author doesn't own any positions mentioned in the article.
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