Moti Ben-Moshe: The German-Israeli Operator Who Took IDB From Dankner

By The Olam Editorial Team · Jun 28, 2026

Born Mordechai Moshiashvili to Georgian olim in Lod. Built Extra Holding in Germany. Walked into Tel Aviv District Court in 2013 with NIS 600M cash and walked out with control of IDB.

Born Mordechai Moshiashvili to Georgian olim in Lod. Built Extra Holding in Germany as a low-margin discount conglomerate. Walked into the Tel Aviv District Court in December 2013 with NIS 600 million in cash and walked out with control of IDB. Lost it to Eduardo Elsztain eighteen months later. Now chairs Dor Alon Energy and owns Alon Blue Square.

Few Israeli business arcs are more unusual than Moti Ben-Moshe's. From a housing project in Lod to a 44th-floor office in the Azrieli Center, with a German telecom-and-energy fortune in between, and one of the largest contested-takeover bids in Israeli history at the inflection point.

Hebrew press has tracked every step since 2013. English coverage is thinner.

Snapshot

Born April 9, 1975, Be'er Sheva, as Mordechai Moshiashvili.
Parents: Yaakov and Atri Moshiashvili — olim from Kulashi, Georgia, arrived Israel 1970s. Father later a branch manager for Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot in Ramla.
Childhood: family moved to Lod (housing project) when he was a baby; later single-family home in Lod.
Education: Nehalim Yeshiva (high school) under Rabbi Menachem Hirsch. Dropped out of Bar-Ilan University (economics and accounting).
Military: IDF non-combat units; studied computer programming at night.
First company: Cyber Gate — billing and micropayment software, founded late 1990s.
Flagship company: Extra Holding GmbH — German conglomerate (telecom, energy, insurance) built on a discount-pricing model; reported ~€80M revenue.
Major moves: IDB Group co-acquisition with Eduardo Elsztain (Dec 2013); Alon Blue Square acquisition (2016); Global Power / IPM Be'er Tuvia power station (2021); Chairman of Dor Alon Energy.
Family: religious, attends Lod synagogue, visits parents monthly.

The Business Story

Ben-Moshe was born in 1975 in Be'er Sheva as Mordechai Moshiashvili. His parents had arrived from Kulashi, Georgia, in the 1970s as part of the Soviet-Jewish emigration wave. They settled first in a Lod housing project, later moved into a single-family home in the same city. His father Yaakov became a branch manager at Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot in Ramla — the same bank in which the Wertheim and Ofer families would later hold controlling stakes. The family is religious. Moshiashvili attended Yeshivat Nehalim near Petah Tikva under Rabbi Menachem Hirsch.

After yeshiva and IDF service in non-combat units — during which he studied computer programming at night — he Hebraized his surname from Moshiashvili to Ben-Moshe. He started briefly at Bar-Ilan University studying economics and accounting, then dropped out.

In the late 1990s, working from his parents' home in Lod, he founded Cyber Gate — a billing and micropayment software company. The business model was the key innovation: rather than charging fixed software licensing fees, Cyber Gate priced its services as a percentage of customer revenue. The model scaled. Cyber Gate became a profitable software business in a market dominated by larger and more conventional competitors.

In the early 2000s, Ben-Moshe relocated to Germany and founded Extra Holding GmbH. Extra was structured as a discount-pricing conglomerate operating in telecommunications, electricity, gas, and insurance — selling commodity utilities to German consumers at lower prices than the established incumbents. The model was the same insight that had worked at Cyber Gate, applied at industrial scale. By the 2010s, Extra Holding was generating approximately €80 million in revenue. Ben-Moshe returned to Israel in 2002 while continuing to run Extra remotely.

The transaction that made him famous in Israel came on December 17, 2013. The Tel Aviv District Court was deliberating the future of IDB Holding Corp — Nochi Dankner's collapsed conglomerate, then in court-supervised restructuring. Two rival bids competed for control. One came from Dankner himself, partnered with Ukrainian businessman Alexander Garanovsky. The other came from Eduardo Elsztain — the Argentine real-estate billionaire who controlled IRSA and had been a passive IDB investor — partnered with a then-virtually-unknown businessman named Moti Ben-Moshe.

Ben-Moshe deposited an NIS 600 million personal guarantee in cash with a court-appointed trustee. Elsztain matched commitments. Together they offered creditors a substantially larger upfront cash injection than the Dankner-Garanovsky alternative. The court accepted the Elsztain-Ben-Moshe bid. Control of IDB — and indirectly of Cellcom, Shufersal, Nesher Cement, Clal Insurance, and the rest of the IDB pyramid — was transferred away from Dankner.

The partnership did not last. Strategic differences between Elsztain and Ben-Moshe emerged within months. In February 2015, IDB Holding Corporation ran a rights offering. Ben-Moshe declined to participate; Elsztain injected an additional NIS 250 million. Ben-Moshe's stake was diluted from 31.3 percent to 16.2 percent; Elsztain's rose to 61.5 percent. In May 2015 the IDB board, controlled by Elsztain, removed Ben-Moshe as co-chairman.

Arbitration followed. Elsztain bought out Ben-Moshe's remaining shares. Ben-Moshe lost approximately NIS 500 million on the IDB investment.

He did not retreat from Israeli distressed-asset investing. In September 2016 he acquired control of Alon Blue Square — the publicly traded holding company that controlled Dor Alon Energy and previously the Mega supermarket chain. In 2017 he competed for Africa Israel Investments through a multi-stage bondholder negotiation, ultimately losing to a partnership of Mega Or and Big Shopping Centers in 2019 after eighteen months of negotiations. In December 2020 he bid NIS 165 million for Israir; the bid failed. In June 2021 he acquired Global Power, gaining indirect control of the IPM Power Station in Be'er Tuvia. He continues to serve as Chairman of Dor Alon Energy.

Why He Matters in Israel

Three reasons.

First, the IDB transaction. The 2013 takeover ended the Dankner era of Israeli holding-company control and inaugurated the post-Concentration-Law era. Whether Ben-Moshe held or lost IDB is less important than the fact that he was one of the two figures who replaced Dankner. He sits in the historical record as a transitional figure between two phases of Israeli capital.

Second, the demographic position. Ben-Moshe is the most prominent post-1970s Israeli-Georgian olim business figure. The Georgian-Jewish community arrived in Israel in significant numbers in the early 1970s, settled disproportionately in development towns including Lod, and has historically been underrepresented in the senior tiers of Israeli capital. Ben-Moshe is the visible counterexample.

Third, the discount-operator model. Extra Holding's structural insight — selling commodity utilities at discount to incumbents, operating with low-margin discipline rather than premium pricing — is a rare operational template in Israeli business, which has tilted toward premium and growth-oriented models. His success in applying that template across telecom, electricity, gas, insurance, and supermarkets is distinctive.

What He Is Doing Today

Ben-Moshe remains Chairman and CEO of Extra Holding in Germany — the platform that generates the continuing cash flow underlying his Israeli investments. He chairs Dor Alon Energy. He owns Alon Blue Square. He controls Global Power and the IPM Power Station in Be'er Tuvia. He continues to evaluate Israeli distressed-asset transactions through these platforms.

His office is on the 44th floor of the Triangular Tower at 3 Azrieli Center in Tel Aviv — the same complex where the IDB headquarters were located when he took it over in 2013.

Key Holdings

Extra Holding GmbH (Germany) — chairman and CEO; telecom, energy, insurance
Alon Blue Square (Israel) — owner (acquired 2016)
Dor Alon Energy (Israel) — Chairman
Global Power → IPM Power Station, Be'er Tuvia — controlling stake (June 2021)
Kolel Store — Israeli minimarket chain
Renewable energy projects in Israel (Extra Energy)

Legacy and Influence

Ben-Moshe's career so far is unfinished. The IDB chapter ended in loss. The post-IDB record — Alon Blue Square, Dor Alon, Global Power — is a steadier and more concentrated set of operating assets, executed with the same discount-pricing discipline that built Extra Holding in Germany. He is fifty. Most of the career arc remains ahead.

His significance in Israeli business is partly architectural — the IDB transition — and partly demographic — the visible Israeli-Georgian operator. Both legacies are likely to compound.

Why He Matters Now

Israeli distressed-asset investing has been a defining feature of the post-Concentration-Law decade. Several large family holding structures unwound — Fishman, Dankner, Zisser, Africa Israel under Leviev. Ben-Moshe has been a recurring participant in those unwindings, sometimes successfully (Alon Blue Square), sometimes not (Africa Israel, Israir).

Whether he becomes a permanent senior figure in Israeli capital — alongside Eyal Ofer, Idan Ofer, Yitzhak Tshuva, and the next generation of Wertheim and Hamburger heirs — will be determined by what he buys next.

מי הוא מוטי בן משה? המפעיל הישראלי-גרמני שלקח מדנקנר את אי.די.בי.

נולד מרדכי משיאשווילי לעולים מקולשי, גאורגיה, בלוד. בנה את חברת אקסטרה החזקות בגרמניה כקונגלומרט הנחות. הגיע לבית המשפט המחוזי בתל אביב בדצמבר 2013 עם 600 מיליון שקל במזומן ויצא עם שליטה באי.די.בי. איבד אותה לאדוארדו אלשטיין בתוך 18 חודשים. כיום מכהן כיו"ר דור אלון אנרגיה ובעלי אלון אחזקות.

מוטי בן משה נולד בבאר שבע ב-1975 כמרדכי משיאשווילי. הוריו עלו מקולשי, גאורגיה, בשנות ה-70. גדל בלוד. למד בישיבת נהלים. הקים את חברת התוכנה Cyber Gate בסוף שנות ה-90 ועבר לגרמניה להקים את אקסטרה החזקות. ב-17 בדצמבר 2013, יחד עם אדוארדו אלשטיין, רכש את השליטה באי.די.בי. מנוחי דנקנר. במאי 2015 אלשטיין דחק אותו החוצה. ב-2016 רכש את אלון אחזקות, וכיום מכהן כיו"ר דור אלון אנרגיה ובעלי תחנת הכוח IPM בבאר טוביה. משרדו בקומה ה-44 של המגדל המשולש במרכז עזריאלי.