Phoenix Financial

The gap: a 1949 institution behind the 2024 headlines

Every leading search result frames Phoenix Financial as one thing: the Israeli company Jared Kushner’s fund bought into. The coverage tallies deal sizes, stake percentages, and ethics questions — and skips the institution itself. Phoenix was established in 1949 as an Israeli insurance company selling life, personal accident, travel, home, and pension products (Life Insurance International). By the time Affinity Partners arrived, it had spent seven decades becoming what its sellers called “one of the most trusted brands in financial services in Israel,” with over $130 billion under management, serving half of Israel’s adult population and delivering 15 percent return on equity (Business Wire). Understanding that ownership arc — who held the shares before Affinity, and why they were for sale — is the part competitors don’t cover, so this profile starts there.

Phoenix’s road to the 2024 deal ran through Delek Group, the Israeli conglomerate that had controlled it. In 2017, Delek signed an agreement to divest 4.9 percent of Phoenix to the Chinese-American insurer Sirius for NIS 208 million ($56.95 million), with Sirius exercising an option to buy Delek’s remaining 47.35 percent for NIS 2.3 billion ($629.56 million) — but the deal died when it failed to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals, including from the Capital Markets, Insurance, and Savings Authority (Life Insurance International). Delek eventually sold control in November 2019 to Belenus Lux, the vehicle of Centerbridge Partners and Gallatin Point Capital (Business Wire). It was those two funds’ exit, five years later, that put the shares on the market for Affinity.

The Affinity deal and the regulator’s last-day approval

On July 16, 2024, Centerbridge and Gallatin agreed to sell up to 21.5 percent of Phoenix Holdings (TLV: PHOE) to a group of international and Israeli investors (Business Wire). Affinity Partners, the Miami-based firm founded in 2021 by Jared Kushner, took 4.95 percent at NIS 37.50 per share and committed to acquiring a further 4.95 percent subject to regulatory approval, while roughly 6.5 percent went to other institutional investors including Lazard Asset Management (Business Wire). Kushner framed it as a macro bet: “We are excited to become significant shareholders in Phoenix. Affinity is long-term bullish on Israel because it is one of the fastest growing countries in the OECD, both in terms of population and GDP growth” (Business Wire).

The second tranche is where the undercovered friction sits. Affinity needed approval from the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority to cross 5 percent — and Globes reported that the approval was issued on the last day before the option expired (Globes). With it, Affinity’s holding rose to 9.9 percent, making the fund Phoenix’s biggest shareholder. Affinity had paid NIS 470 million for each tranche; by January 2025 the combined holding was worth NIS 1.46 billion, a paper profit of more than NIS 500 million (Globes). The same Globes report expected the regulator to impose restrictions, noting that Affinity is “a ‘Saudi fund’” whose financial sources were raised mainly from Gulf countries (Globes). In the same share sale, Delek Group itself bought and quickly resold a 4.9 percent stake, pocketing a swift NIS 120 million profit (Globes).

From 9.9 percent to 7.4 percent — still the largest shareholder

The position kept appreciating. On July 27, 2026, Affinity announced it had sold 25 percent of its Phoenix shares to a small number of long-only asset managers in a Jefferies-led placing, a move that returned Affinity’s original investment to its limited partners while leaving it with 7.4 percent of Phoenix — still the company’s largest shareholder (PR Newswire). Since the 2024 initial investment, Phoenix’s value including dividend distributions had increased roughly fivefold, and the company had been added to both the MSCI World and MSCI Israel indices (PR Newswire).

What Phoenix actually is

Phoenix Financial (TASE: PHOE) describes itself as a leading Israeli financial platform and capital allocator with over $215 billion in assets under management, operating across multi-line insurance and asset management — fund management, wealth solutions, retirement, advisory, brokerage, employee stock option administration, and credit origination (PR Newswire). It trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange within the Tel Aviv 35, MSCI World, MSCI Israel, FTSE Developed, and Bloomberg Developed Markets indices (PR Newswire). The company is run by CEO Eyal Ben Simon and Chairman Benny Gabbay, who both personally invested in Phoenix around the 2024 transaction (Business Wire). Affinity Partners, founded in 2021, manages over $6 billion with a team of more than 30 professionals focused on growth equity and technology investments (PR Newswire).

What this profile does not claim

• It does not detail the 2015 sale attempt to China’s Fosun or its 2016 cancellation; that was not verified from a citable source read in full.
• It does not give the founding narrative (founders, original company name) beyond the 1949 establishment year.
• It does not assert the precise current market capitalization or AUM beyond the figures in the cited sources.
• It does not repeat activist allegations about settlement financing, which were not verified from a read-in-full source.
• It does not state whether the Capital Market Authority actually imposed the restrictions Globes expected; that was reported as an expectation, not an outcome.