(Bloomberg)Vernon Silver - At a time when the PA was starved for funds, Arafat's money managers placed bets from Tel Aviv to Silicon Valley on venture capital funds, software startups, and telecommunications companies. Arafat's stakes ranged from $285 million in Egyptian mobile-phone company Orascom Telecom Holding SAE and its Algerian and Tunisian affiliates to some $30 million in private equity, mostly in the U.S. These included $3.2 million in Simplexity Inc., which makes electronic-commerce software, $2.1 million in Vaultus Inc., which makes software for wireless computers, and $1.3 million in Strike Holdings LLC, which owns the Bowlmor Lanes bowling alley in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, and bowling alleys in Miami, Bethesda, Md., and New Hyde Park, Long Island. Arafat invested abroad through Palestine Commercial Services Co. (PCSC), a Ramallah-based holding company owned by the PA, making the investments abroad with tax money that he "diverted" from the Palestinian finance ministry, according to a September 2003 IMF report on the Palestinian economy.
2004-12-24 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive