Joseph Hackmey: The Actuary Who Ran Israel Phoenix and Sold It for $314 Million

Joseph Hackmey is the Israeli businessman and actuary who ran Israel Phoenix Assurance for the last quarter of the twentieth century — CEO from roughly 1975, chairman from 1991 — and then, in 2002, sold the family's 56.8 percent controlling stake to the Mayer Group for $314 million, valuing the company at approximately $540 million. Outside insurance, he is a fifth-generation Israeli, an internationally cited art and stamp collector, and a former chairman of the Israeli Chess Association. This is the canonical English business record.

The Family Business That Became Israel Phoenix

The Hackmey family is fifth-generation Israeli. Joseph's paternal grandfather, Joseph Hackmey Shvili, directed Barclays Bank when it was the largest bank in Mandatory Palestine. His maternal grandfather, Moshe Carasso, was a prominent businessman in Palestine.

His father, David Hackmey, established an insurance agency in 1943 at age 24. In 1949, David converted the agency into an assurance company with two partners — the English Phoenix Assurance Company and Israel Discount Bank. That entity became Israel Phoenix Assurance.

Joseph Hackmey joined Israel Phoenix in 1968. Seven years later, in roughly 1975, the board appointed him CEO. Within four years of that appointment, company profits multiplied roughly five times. He was twice elected chairman of the Israeli Insurance Association and twice chairman of the Israeli Life Offices Association during his executive tenure.

When David Hackmey died in 1991, Joseph succeeded him as chairman of Israel Phoenix. He held the chairmanship for eleven years, until the 2002 sale — bringing his total leadership tenure at the company to roughly twenty-six years across CEO and chairman roles.

The $314 Million Sale to the Mayer Group

The 2002 transaction closed after more than a year of negotiations. Joseph Hackmey and his sister Nitza sold the family's 56.8 percent controlling stake — reported by Haaretz at the deal close as 57.7 percent of the shares outstanding — to the Mayer Group, headed by brothers-in-law Ya'akov Shahar and Israel Kez. Shahar and Kez were the Israeli importers of Volvo cars and the owners of the Maccabi Haifa football club.

Consideration was $314 million, implying an enterprise valuation of approximately $540 million. At the time of the sale, Israel Phoenix was the third-largest insurance company in Israel. The transaction was the single largest Israeli insurance-industry deal of the year.

Earlier attempts at a control transaction had failed. In 1999, Hackmey and co-controlling shareholder Shlomo Elihau (37.5 percent) attempted to separate their joint holdings — with cross-offers at company valuations between $400 million and $500 million — but neither party accepted the other's price. The Mayer Group deal three years later resolved the ownership question at a materially higher valuation.

After the sale, Israel Phoenix moved its headquarters from the downtown Tel Aviv building on Levontin Street to new offices, and sold the Levontin building back to Hackmey personally.

The Israel Phoenix Corporate Art Collection

Hackmey used the Israel Phoenix balance sheet to build what became the most-cited corporate art collection in Israel. The collection totaled 2,200 items — overwhelmingly paintings, with a smaller sculpture component — valued at approximately ILS 216 million at the time of the 2002 sale.

The international holdings included Picasso, Matisse, Rothko, Jasper Johns, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean Dubuffet, and Van Gogh. The Israeli holdings included Reuven Rubin, Yehezkel Streichman, Arie Aroch, Joseph Zaritsky, Yitzhak Danziger, Marcel Janco, Mordecai Ardon, Aviva Uri, Raffi Lavie, and Avigdor Stematsky. Professor Mordechai Omer, director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, studied the collection and published a 600-page book on it. In 1998 the museum organized an exhibition featuring 300 items.

Following the ownership change, the Mayer Group elected to sell the non-Israeli portion of the corporate collection at Christie's in an Evening Sale in November 2002. Jasper Johns's 0 through 9 sold for $9.9 million, above its $6–8 million estimate. Barnett Newman's White Fire I brought approximately $3.9 million. The Israeli portion of the collection was retained.

In 1994, a London-based art news magazine named Hackmey Art Collector of the Year. ARTnews has listed him among the 200 biggest art collectors in the world.

Philately, Chess, and the Second Career

Hackmey's stamp collections of Ceylon and New Zealand Commonwealth issues are internationally cited as among the finest ever assembled for those countries. In 2006 he paid €830,000 for the November 11, 1858 issue of the Romanian newspaper Zimbrul și Vulturul, bearing eight rare cap de bour (Bull's Head) stamps issued by the principality of Moldova in 1858. He won the Grand Prix National and a Large Gold Medal at Efiro 2008 in Bucharest for his exhibit Classical Romania. He has also collected Grand Prix medals at World Philatelic Exhibitions in Istanbul (1996), Israel (1998), and Israel (2008).

He served as chairman of the Israeli Chess Association. Over his chairmanship, the number of Israeli international chess grandmasters rose from five to twenty-nine.

Bnai Brith International awarded him its International Humanitarian award. Tel Aviv University conferred an honorary doctorate in 2009. He completed an MA in Judaic Studies at New York University in 2013. He established the Hackmey Hebrew Classical Library, positioned alongside the Loeb Classical Library at Harvard University Press.

Why Joseph Hackmey Matters to Israeli Business History

Hackmey ran one of the three largest Israeli insurance companies for the last quarter of the twentieth century, executed the largest single-year Israeli insurance-industry sale of 2002, and used the corporate balance sheet to build a nine-figure art collection that reshaped how Israeli institutional art collecting was practiced. The Mayer Group's subsequent decision to sell the non-Israeli collection at Christie's — while retaining the Israeli holdings — split Hackmey's cultural project along the same commercial-vs-national fault line that runs through most Israeli family-business exits.

For parallel Israeli founder profiles in the same period, see Zvi Stepak on the asset-management side and Avraham Bigger on the IDB-era executive class. For the current Israeli insurance-and-pension landscape that succeeded the Phoenix-Migdal-Clal-Harel era, see Menora Mivtachim.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Joseph Hackmey?
Israeli businessman and actuary; CEO of Israel Phoenix Assurance from ~1975, chairman from 1991, and lead seller of the family's 56.8 percent controlling stake to the Mayer Group in 2002 for $314 million.

When did Hackmey sell Israel Phoenix?
July 2002. Buyers: the Mayer Group (Ya'akov Shahar and Israel Kez, Volvo importers, Maccabi Haifa owners). Consideration $314M; enterprise value ~$540M.

How large was Israel Phoenix at the time of the sale?
The third-largest insurance company in Israel.

What is the Israel Phoenix art collection?
2,200 items, valued at ~ILS 216M in 2002. International masters (Picasso, Matisse, Rothko, Johns, Newman, Rauschenberg, Van Gogh) alongside Israeli veterans (Rubin, Zaritsky, Streichman, Danziger, Lavie). Non-Israeli portion auctioned at Christie's November 2002.

What was Hackmey's role in Israeli chess?
Chairman of the Israeli Chess Association. Israeli international grandmasters rose from five to twenty-nine during his tenure.