Iscar Ltd. president Jacob Harpaz seems to be only man using the word “bubble” in a positive sense. “Throughout our existence and through all the wars, Iscar always operated at full capacity. Neither the Yom Kippur War nor the Lebanon War caused us to close the factory for even one day. It was as if we were in a bubble of work,” he said yesterday.
Iscar has no plans to close its factory now either. “The factory building is protected. The biggest problem is our employees who are residents of Haifa and the Krayot, who decided to stay at home today,” he said. “We respect each person’s choice, but we have loyal employees, and I assume they’ll make arrangements by tomorrow enabling them to come to work. For our part, we’re trying to help them organize, even bringing families here.”
“Globes”: Have you suffered any economic damage from the conflict?
Harpaz: “I cannot comment on that. In principle, we’re organized worldwide so that our customers should not sense any change, even if we have to close activity in Israel or somewhere else, which, as I said, we have no intention of doing.”
Has Warren Buffett said anything? Expressed concern, or made a call of support?
“Why is Buffett important now? We’re talking about business as usual. I’m sure that Buffett also reads the newspapers, but so long as customers don’t complain, he, too, should have no reason to worry.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 17, 2006
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