M&A activity involving Israeli companies that were either acquired or merged totaled $10.58 billion in 2006 in 76 deals. The total dollar volume was significantly higher than in previous years and was a third of the $35.8 billion for Israeli high-tech deals since 2000.

The most noteworthy M&A deal during 2006 was the acquisition of Mercury by Hewlett-Packard for $4.5 billion. Other significant deals included the acquisition of M-Systems by SanDisk for $1.55 billion, the acquisition of Lipman by VeriFone for $793 million.

If Israeli tech companies could also now work on their business ethics by complying to e.g. Code of Ethics or Privacy Policies, one could even think of using them as a role model for other countries. But we don't want to get too optimistic on this for 2007 since these habits seem deeply rooted...