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Partner

Elite Elkon is a partner at Gornitzky GNY, specializing in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), financial regulation, and financing. Elite possesses extensive experience in handling large-scale international M&A and financing deals, and in providing regulatory advice within the financial sector. Her expertise includes guiding private equity funds, investors, financial institutions, and their controlling shareholders.

Elite consistently leads high-profile and precedent-setting M&A transactions and investments in the Israeli market. She advises leading international and Israeli clients on complex and significant deals with a substantial impact on the local market. Additionally, she represents Israeli financial institutions in their domestic and international investments and provides legal counsel to a wide range of financial entities, including banks, institutional investors, and non-banking financial institutions, both in Israel and abroad.

In her practice, Elite handles investment transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and financing deals. She is highly skilled in various aspects of financial regulation and represents controlling shareholders and stakeholders in leading Israeli and international financial institutions. Her expertise extends to control permits, holding permits, banking regulations, and related legislation, including regular engagement with the Israeli financial regulators- Bank of Israel and the Israel Capital Market, Insurance, and Savings Authority. She also supports international banks in their activities in Israel, including establishing and managing local representative offices.

In recent years, she has acted in the following matters:

Representation of Israeli and foreign corporations in cross-border M&A transactions; Representation of lenders and borrowers in financing and security transactions, including cross-border transactions and regulatory matters; Representation of large Israeli banks and their respective controlling shareholders in relation to control permits and banking-related legislation and regulation, including vis-à-vis the Bank of Israel; Cross-border transactions with respect to hotel management agreements, and the sale and purchase of hotels; Representation of clients in commercial transactions and investments; Representation of the control holders of major Israeli insurance companies in matters concerning insurance-related legislation, including vis-a-vis the Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Commissioner.

Recent matters handled by Elite include:

Representation of international private equity fund Warburg Pincus, in its acquisition of Leumi Card from Bank Leumi and the Azrieli Group, in a transaction valued at NIS 2.5 billion. This was the first transaction to implement the recommendations of the Committee for Increasing Competition in Common Banking Financial Services (“The Strum Committee”), to separate the credit card companies from the banks, in order to increase competition in the Israeli banking sector. Representation of Delek Group in its sale of its controlling stake in Phoenix, the holding company of one of Israel’s largest insurance companies and one of the country’s largest investment houses (Excellence), to Centerbridge and Gallatin, global private equity funds. Representation of Gilis Holdings Ltd. and the Gilis Family in the sale of 60% of Gil-Car to Kedma Capital, a leading Israeli Private Equity fund. Representation of Phoenix Insurance Group in investments and financing transactions in the UK and the US. Representation of Clal Insurance Group in investments and financing transactions in the US.

During her legal studies, Elite served as a member of the editorial board of the Tel Aviv University Law Review.

Hebrew, English and French.

2000, Israel Bar Association

Executive MBA, Kellogg-Northwestern University and the Tel Aviv University (joint degree) (2005); LL.B., magna cum laude, Tel Aviv University (1999) - Dean's List (1996).