"Everybody wants more money, I'm just not ashamed of it"

Ever since he can remember himself, Amir Bramly wanted to make money ■ At the age of 16 he set up his first business with a snake he found in the neighborhood, the second as soon as he was discharged from the IDF, and then focused on small businesses, spreading risks and betting on surprising ideas ■ Today the companies he owns are already worth approximately 1 billion NIS.

For a moment during the interview, Amir Bramly turned silent. He takes a minute or two to think about the question thrown into the air and then answers: " The truth is, I have no idea when the big leap in the scope of our operation took place. I can't pinpoint exactly when we started making big money. My mom also asked me not too long ago if I recall when it happened, and I couldn’t answer. "After thinking a while longer, he says: "The truth is we’ve been very profitable for a long time now, but nobody’s heard of it until now."

Bramly, only 38 years old, is a young businessman with great ambition and a lot of money. Until recently, he was only known to a handful of people in the capital market and several dozen small and medium business owners working with him. But two years ago, the big leap came. A combination of good bets on trends and ideas, investing in the right companies and making an exit on time turned him from a wealthy man into a millionaire who’s companies worth amounts to, according to him, approximately 1 billion NIS, and that he currently has a liquid capital of 200 million NIS he is looking invest. "So many times, I’ve been told I was dreaming, that I was delusional, that my ideas didn't make sense, but as we can see, it worked", he said.

He translates this success into a good life. He built a house in Amikam, where reserve duty Major General Yoav Galant resides. He travels in a BMW Series 5 worth around 400K NIS, and his offices, decorated with small models of race cars, are located on the 42nd floor of the Electra Tower in Tel Aviv, one of the most luxurious office towers in the city. The interview with him is accompanied, as befitting the occasion, by a personal assistant and a public relations person.

Bramly started his first business at the age of 16. "Throughout most of my childhood, I was in a distressful financial environment", he recalls. "I grew up in a warm, loving, and incredible home in Acre, but both my parents earned 7,000 NIS a month combined, which was little even in the 1980s. My mother was a kindergarten teacher, and my father was a computer technician who retired from Rafael, tried to set up an independent business, went bankrupt, and went into debt. We were living on the edge, with loans and an overdraft. I quickly realized this is not how I wanted to live. Distress was a big part of my drive for business.

Already at an early age, it was clear to me that if I wanted to have a way to pay for a class I wanted to go to, I had to go out and get some money, but even then, for some reason, it didn't make sense to me going to work – so at the age of 16 I started a business. I knew how to guide, I attended field field-group activities throughout my childhood, and one of my hobbies was reptiles. So, I decided to start a lecture business on reptiles in schools. I grabbed a snake and a slide projector and started to visiting schools and offer lectures".

Amir Bramly. Photograph: Shlush

Where did you get a snake from? Did you catch it on your own?

"Yes. Nowadays, it might be a little more complex to catch a snake like that, but back then, it was basic. I spent hours on buses traveling between schools, and for two months, I couldn't sell a single lecture. That’s when I had a realization- I just changed the lecture name. Instead of a lecture on reptiles, I offered a ‘summer safety from snakes’ lecture – and there wasn’t a single school that refused it. Within six months, I employed 4-5 instructors almost full-time, one of whom was driving for me because I didn't have a driver’s license. I didn’t turn into an empire, but I was able to make more money than both my parents together".

A 70 million NIS profit in less than a year

There is something inspiring about Bramly, an inspiration that comes not only from the fact that he is a person whose day-to-day business is in identifying small and medium-sized businesses, and providing financial and strategic support for their development, but also probably due to his age, and that he is still relatively naive in the business world he operates in – and truly believes that believing in yourself along with a proper personality structure can shift mountains.

In keeping with this naivety, it’s hard to find a common denominator for the businesses he invests in through Rubicon investment group, which he owns – restaurants, high-tech companies, tourism and finance ("we have 180 employees, and together with the companies we own, we have 400 employees"). Every business, in terms of Bramly, is an investment option. "We look at 3,200 companies and entrepreneurs every year. Twenty-two years after starting his business career selling lectures on reptiles to schools, Bramly concludes a record year at the business level. That was the year his name became known in the capital market, and the group he heads is about to be part of quite a few significant deals in the economy.

Earlier this week, Bramly exercised an option he had to increase his stake in the waste recycling company, WTP. A move that would lead him to a 42.5% stake in the company, which he recently made into a shelf corporation and introduced to the Tel Aviv stock exchange currently trading for a total worth of 200 million NIS. The realization of the option for Bramly means a profit of 70 million NIS – on paper – from his investment in WTP, in less than a year.

At the same time, Bramly recently purchased shelf corporation into which he intends to introduce operation. And, in February, an American fund purchased 64% of an Internet venture under his control – Wobi, which enables an end-consumer to compare insurance costs – for 40 million NIS. This is a venture Bramly invested only 8 million NIS in acquiring control of a year earlier. As of today, according to him, the proposals for Wobi – which he still owns 25% of – embody a value of 150 million NIS to the company.

These are just the big deals. Most of Rubicon's business consists of small investments of a few million NIS. However, Bramly currently estimates the group's assets worth at 1 billion NIS, and says the group is currently enjoying liquidity sums amounting to 200 million NIS, which then intend to put into new investments. This is by no means a small amount considering that to date, according to Bramly, the company has invested only 170 million NIS, and it does not carry leverage in the form of loans from the public or from the banks.

The preference for investing in small portions is a motto for Bramly: "It’s true that the last two years have been phenomenal, but we’ve already had seven good years. It’s just not all in the headlines. Over the past year, the scope has grown bigger. If I must analyze us, then first off, we’re not realizing our holdings at their peak. It's a part of our strategy. It's a less adventurous approach. In our risk function, the most significant part is time. We all usually know what tomorrow will hold. Not so much in a week, and even less so in a month. As I reduce the investment time, I cut the risk. Secondly, when I’m not selling at peak, I leave room for profit for whoever buys from me.

Cofix in Lilenblum. Photograph: Daniel Ben Or

What about a scenario where someone who buys from you loses?

"We don’t sell losing companies. We recently had Chocolota (a chain of chocolate stores), which went into losses, and we had investors who may have been interested in buying it. We didn't sell. It's a matter of integrity. Thirdly, we're not tempted by huge deals. Although we have hundreds of millions of NIS available for investment, I'm not going for a deal of 200-300 million NIS. Our approach is that even when it comes to a deal of 5-10 million NIS, times 20 such deals – it amounts to a lot of money”.

Which deals did you not go for?

"Ace came to me and wanted us to buy them. Steimatzky and Markstone Capital were here, as well as Call Insurance and Holdings”.

Did you pass on them because of their size?

"Also. We’re not tempted by such deals because, overall, the returns are higher in small businesses. Taking a business worth 20 million NIS to 40 million NIS is easier than taking a business from 100 million NIS to 120 million NIS, and, in the first case, we made 100% profit on our money, whereas in the second case only 20%. So, it's better for me to make 100% twenty times. And, even if 40% of my small deals fail, I'm still up 60% return on the money I invested compared to the 20% return the big deal would have given me. There are plenty of colleagues in the business, who, as talented as they are – have sinned with vanity, went for bigger and greater deals, and crashed”.

This mantra, of not going for bigger deals, is reminiscent of that of Yishai Davidi, director of the FIMI Fund.

"FIMI invests for a longer-term than we do and went into bigger businesses.”

You engage with a wide variety of fields and companies, isn't that a bit confusing?

"What's going on here is chaotic – it's me, and it's Rubicon. It's a very orderly chaotic. I've gotten used to the fact that I’m not being understood. I used to try and explain how I operate. Not anymore. I accept that. There's something about this dispersion that’s good for me. If you look for a common denominator at the level of businesses we invest in – it's 'fields that make money'."

Hukuk Beach, Kineret. Photograph: Moshe Gilad

From the first million – to the island in Belize

Bramly probably has reason to believe that the road to big money goes through small businesses, as he can tell in detail how the path to where he stands today has gone through a long series of small ventures. When he turned 18, he retired from the reptile business and enlisted, not before doing a year of service as an instructor at a field-school. When wondering what the connection between a year of service associated with idealism, and a young businessman is, he says: "On the day I enlisted, if you were to take a round of bets between my friends what would come of me, you would probably get answers somewhere in between a shepherd and a tour guide. The business orientation has evolved over the years, but I came from an environment with plenty of nature. To this day, I like traveling very much. It's not contradictory."

In the Army, he served in a unit belonging to the Intelligence Corps and started his next business venture right after being discharged. "When we were discharged, all the unit’s soldiers were given a dive instructor course as a gift. So, they all went through the course and went to work at diving clubs. I started a diving instruction business."

Where did you get the money to start a company?

"Most of the business was outsourced. I rented services from the existing clubs and had service agreements with them, where I pay them per course, per person. At the same time, I took loans because I still needed 40K NIS to get started. Only no one was willing to give me the money, so I had to split the loan between three banks and lie to them. To the first, I told I needed the money to buy a car and the other something different. When it comes to the amount of 10K NIS from each bank – they gave it to me. Next, I did something that, at first glance, would have seemed delusional, but that's how I work today as well. I went out on the market with the idea that customers get the course for free, but once they finish it, they have to pay to get the diving permit. I assumed that anyone passing the course would eventually want the permit. That's why I needed the money to get started.

"The marketing psychology was that I told the customers: 'I fund the course for you, and you decide at the end whether to pay for the permit'. 95% of the customers paid at the end, and I was 30% – 40% more expensive than the rest of the market. I counted on the fact that anyone going through a diving experience would also want to take the test on the last day to let him know he can now go diving, and the business was a success. The company was gaining volume, we were working a lot with tech companies – it was the high-tech bubble era of the 2000s, and then two diving clubs approached me and offered to buy the business”.

What did they actually buy? In practice, your business had no physical assets.

"It was a brand. I had a large list of customers, I had future orders, and I had the system I developed. It's always easier to buy than to start the same thing. So, they made me an offer of 1 million NIS. In retrospect, I realized that they made the offer to start bargaining, but back then it seemed imaginary to me, and that was the first time I realized that a business could also be sold, that it wasn’t just about starting it and making a salary. That was my first million”.

Photograph: Maslulim

Did you start your next business with that money?

"No. At this point, I met my future spouse and went on a world tour. We arrived in Belize, the Caribbean, fell in love with the country and decided we wanted to stay. We sent our resume to everyone we knew and eventually arrived at a private island in Belize, where they were looking for managers to manage the resort it had. It's a scuba diving and fishing resort that rich people come to and pay 50-60K USD per week to detach and live in cabins without a TV. It hosted celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Tommy Lee Jones, and Meg Ryan.”

Just like that, they hired someone with no experience in running a tourism business?

"That's what characterizes me, believing anything is possible. In the two weeks before the interview, I sat with some of the tourists so they could teach me how to work with Excel, which was one of the requirements. I downloaded a book on hotel management, read it, and learned everything you need to know to get through the interview. My approach was, I had it takes, and I’ll learn. This approach of fighting is, after all, an entrepreneur's living-environment. Even when we were there, we were engaged in ventures. We’ve upgraded systems on the island – instead of watering the entire island with a hose, we’ve set up an irrigation system. We’ve arranged for the water to be heated using solar water heaters instead of using electricity and gas. It was there I learned everything required to run a business”.

What about formal education?

"During the time we were living on the island, I studied towards a degree in Business Administration and Economics through Hartford University in Connecticut. It's a university that allows for most of the studying to be done remotely. But primarily, I realized that if I were to study at an academy before I started my entrepreneurial steps, I probably wouldn't have become an entrepreneur. These studies have templates that displace entrepreneurship. When my wife became pregnant, we returned to Israel, to a farm waiting for us in Ramot Naftali – and I founded a consulting company.”

A farm in Ramot Naftali? Where did you get the money to buy it?

"We bought it before we went traveling. 5% of the purchase amount came from funds we raised from friends and family, and the rest was loans. We rented the place, stationed two additional caravans, and rented those out as well. With the rent, we paid the mortgage. We didn't even sell the car we had before we went traveling. Instead, we rented it to someone for 1,000 NIS a month. When we came back to Israel, we opened a consultation center for small-medium businesses in the North. Back then, there wasn't anything like it, providing graphics, media, and internet services in one single place.

Who approached you, if any?

"B&B owners, ATV renters, kibbutz businesses."

Why would they come to you?

"I already had a bit of a record. I could say I ran business. We marketed ourselves well and gained customers. But it took me no more than two months to realize that selling consultation hours wasn’t going to get me big money.”

Have you always been aiming for big money?

"Yes. Not because of the money itself, but because I believe that what enables our spiritual freedom is the economic world in which we live. Our day-to-day is ultimately economic. At the same time, human nature is that we always want more. Everyone wants more; I'm simply not ashamed of it. It's okay and legitimate to want more. Nowadays, much of the time, it's shameful to say you want more. It’s associated with greed. I always say that if we didn't want more – we’d still be living in caves. So, at some point around 2006, I started telling anyone who came to me for consultation “don't pay me with money, give me a percentage in the business, and I'll be your investor”. Since, after all, much of the advice from a consultant such as myself often involves investing money in some way. There is also something about the consultant’s role, which is, he never associates himself with failure or success – and I changed that.”

"Entrepreneurs fail when they fall in love with the business."

So, you only chose good businesses? To those you did not invest in, did you not consult, or did you simply tell them to close?

"Even today, I recommend more than 60% of the businesses that come to me to close. Too many entrepreneurs arrive when in-love with the idea."

As an entrepreneur, you of all should love and believe in your product.

"That may be valid for a one-time entrepreneur, but not for someone who invests like us as a fund in a lot of companies. When entrepreneurs come to me, I tell them, “Don't talk to me about the product. Explain to me about the business”. When an entrepreneur sits down with me and opens with the product, I tell him, “Stop, tell me what the business is. Tell me: Amir, I have a business that can produce in a conservative scenario 60%, annually, and in an optimistic scenario, this and that, the risk is 20%. I need a 500,000 USD investment, and the expected transition towards profit is one year”. The approach should be analytical. It may sound direct and materialistic, but entrepreneurs fail when they fall in love with the business.

On your investments list, you have several restaurants. Just this week, TheMarker published that the entire industry is in deep crisis.

"That's right. We're setting up a portfolio of restaurants. It's a tricky business. For some reason, every Israeli has a dream of opening a cafe or restaurant. He sees his restaurant-owning neighbor come out of the driveway with a Land Cruiser and thinks why not me. He doesn't understand it's a lease, and that not everyone who knows how to cook at home can start a business. A restaurant is one of the most complex businesses out there. It involves service, production, storage, and marketing. But, it’s a great business if you don’t take credit. We only buy working restaurants, only with a profit multiplier of 2.5-3, which can reflect a 20% -30% return. A restaurant is simply a business that shouldn’t be taking credit."

But to set up the restaurant, you have to take credit.

"True. But you should pay it back after 6-12 months in which the restaurant is operating. From 72 restaurants we checked out, we bought three.”

Are you involved with them?

"I haven't been to the restaurants. We have teams that check out the businesses."

You didn't invest in Cofix, even though you were a partner of the owners, Avi Katz and Gil Unger, in the Hagshama Investment Fund.

“It was a strategic decision not to invest in both retail and real estate. The prospect of investment in these fields is limited and less controllable. Cofix is ​​an important business, but it’s a business that requires a lot of operational inputs, and I minimize investments in operational businesses.”

Every business requires such inputs.

"Not at the same level. In a business like Wobi, you invest money, and then there's a working Internet platform.”

How did you really reach a buyer of Wobi, a 3.4 billion USD company listed in Bermuda

"From the moment we purchased Wobi, we've identified potential investors. White Mountains, who bought Wobi in the end, is a 60 billion USD investment fund. It was also interested in investing in the Fenix and Clal Insurance. We have a 'realization team' in the company. We looked into who has ties with them, and once we’ve set up the connection, I led the deal. Wobi is a phenomenal company. It's a company with social value, and we learned that when there’s a social value – the marketing resources get reduced. It has become a value of ours and a sort of business model. If the customer has immediate value, the business can be turned successful.”

What about the tender in Georgia, in which the recycling company WTP is competing?

"We are waiting for the results. I’ve just returned from a few days' visit there. It’s a tender worth 400 million euros. The Georgians want to set up recycling centers all across the country. WTP is a company we have invested in 5 million NIS."

Isn’t the inventor of the technology behind it eating his heart out today?

"There’s weight to our involvement. We’re smart money."

What’s Rubicon’s most significant deal, its major leap?

"There was nothing significant that made the change. Take, for example, the flower chain store Tulip. We got into the field, small. We bought one store in Azrieli Mall for 35,000 NIS. We studied the business, and in the next six months, we purchased six stores, each for 50,000 NIS. We ended up selling the chain store we built for 3.5 million NIS, after making a profit of 2.5 million NIS.

"There’s the waters of Hukok – a project that we are very proud of. I love camping, and one of the worse things for me is the state of the Sea of ​​Galilee, the fact that it became for the Israelis, something nasty, common, and dirty, while you’re talking about a lake in the wild here. A few years ago, a tender was published for a beach at the Sea of Galilee, and we went to take a look at it. It was something that seemed delusional on a business level – what’s it like to run a beach in the Sea of ​​Galilee? It's basically running a parking lot. But we’ve decided the place would become an ecological beach that would bring back the lake experience, which allows for quality camping, and can be a base for hiking. We turned it into 'Blue Flag Beach' (an environmental quality character awarded to beaches and marinas) with no barbecues."

And where is the profit from? The entry fees?

"There is no entry fee. You can’t charge for it. You pay 4.9 NIS per hour on parking, and a maximum of 20 NIS or so. But there’s a buffet, and there will be a restaurant. We rent tents, mattresses, sheets and all kinds of services. I believe that as long as there’s good, convenient service – people will consume it, because all in all, people are on vacation, and for two weeks now we’ve been buying more and more equipment, while we’re already fully booked, and not only in Sukkot. We already have 40% occupancy booked for Passover, and we plan to introduce more activities and content, and open an option for bike tours. This is our second year, and we’re balancing. It’s an ecological project, which we’ve placed an economic model on top of.

"I invest more in the person than in the company."

Apart from the investments in various businesses, which he does out of his money and that of other private elements through the Rubicon Group, Bramly also raises money from the public for his investments in small and medium businesses – through the Kela Fund. The Kela Fund appeals to the general public and offers investing sums ranging from 120,000 NIS to 1.2 million NIS in loans to businesses and companies – to complete the equity capital for these companies – which allows them to take out additional loans from banks later on. The problem with these types of funds is that, although they raise money from the general public, they operate without any regulatory oversight.

"It's really problematic", says Bramly, "on the one hand, the Authority is not dealing with funds under 35 investors, but the transition to a stock exchange company (over 35 investors) involves bureaucracy and large expenses. You have to find an intermediate way to supervise small and medium funds, without forcing us to go to the stock exchange.”

The Kela Fund has attracted the attention of the Israel Securities Authority, which, up until six months ago, reviewed its activities together with the activities of several other funds that offer investors high returns relative to the alternatives currently available in the market. When we ask Bramly whether the loans granted by the fund are not actually "gray market activity", he explains, "absolutely not. The fund operates in an area that the banking system does not respond to. There’s nothing gray here. I don’t guarantee a return for my investors. There’s an issue with the economy today. A business seeking a loan, for example, from the Small & Medium Business Aid Fund should provide collateral it cannot meet. The same is true when it comes to bank loans".

You said you were moving away from real estate, but you were invested in the Hagshama fund, which integrates investment groups into property investment.

"To be exact, I invested in the fund itself, overall, not in its assets. There is a phenomenal real estate deal that was offered to me just now for 400 million NIS on HaYarkon Street in Tel Aviv, a prime location, and I didn’t take it. I don’t deal with real estate.”

Doesn't it hurt that you sold your holding over Hagshama? It’s worth much more today.

"Hagshama, after setting up its operations in London, is worth 400 million NIS, which that’s while I sold it at a value of 200 million and still made double the money for it. It wouldn’t matter even if today it would be worth 100 times."

So, what's the next objective?

"Right now, I'm facing a personal challenge. I don't have the next thing in my mind. I don't want to change much."

How do you choose what to invest in?

"I invest more in the person than in the company. If someone I believe in comes along, I'm willing to invest in his salary ¼ million NIS, ½ million NIS. The other side is that I prefer rewarding results. It's important to me that people remember the essence of the business is financial. You don’t set up a business to have fun. If you want to have fun, be an employee, or invest in something for pleasure. Usually, if we have an alternative to making the same money as employees, we’ll stay such."

But being a private business owner grants you freedom.

"I think the opposite. The business gives you less freedom. You are much more committed, you need a lot more talent and abilities, and you have more environmental responsibility. From someone very talented at doing one thing, you turn into a manager, whom no one can guarantee will get paid at the end of the month. Freedom is often an illusion.

"When you succeed with the business, it allows for freedom, and then the challenge is your true choices. That is when you have to decide where you want to live. In Eilat, Kfar Shmaryahu, Amikam, or a tower in Tel Aviv, because you can live anywhere in the country. That is when you decide where you want to educate your children, which car you want to drive. You can buy a Fiat, and you can buy a Ferrari. You can do everything. There are no financial constraints."

Tough life.

"I know what that sounds like. That's what you call rich people problems. Call it like that – but it's a daily challenge. I can stop my doing right now, get into three months of realizations, and eventually sit with a net 700 million NIS in the bank and say thank you very much – and suddenly my struggles are not within the range of economic constraints, but within my own space of desires and that’s a different world."

Some studies show happiness increases only up to a certain level of wealth, beyond which happiness declines.

"I can accept that. On the other hand, Rabbi Akiva, the Dalai Lama, and other great spiritualists were multi-billionaires from birth. These were people who had everything done for them. There were staffs of assistants around them, so they had plenty of time for the spirit."

Would you define yourself as a happy person?

"Very much. It is also reflected when people ask me where I see myself in five years. I always reply that I don't want to change much – I have a good dose of family and private life, and I enjoy what I do. I get up in the morning, and I want to get to work and the office. It's hard for me to imagine I’d have done things differently – the option I have today of making my true choices, and the restraint I have of not succumbing to economic and material temptations, but of using this ability to create a suitable living environment for myself – is what makes me happy. People don’t understand, for example, why I go camping. It seems out of character to them. After all, you go camping when you want to save some money, but I like it more so than any hotel in the world. "