Tsahi Merkur

References

Tsahi Merkur
File:TsahiMerkur.jpg
Born	Tsahi Merkur 1976
Occupation	CEO
Known for	Founder of “Success Parking”

Tsahi Merkur (צחי מרקור) is an Israeli business man active both in Israeli and international markets. He is an entrepreneur in the field of Hi-Tech and the founder, CEO, and chairman of the biggest Israeli parking company “Success Parking”. In addition, he is the Chairman of the Israeli Parking Association which operates under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce.

Early life

Tsahi Merkur born in 1976, began his career as an entrepreneur with a number of small projects already at the early age of 6. He formally entered the world of business at the age of 16. Tsahi studied at the ORT Singalovski High School, majoring in Computer Science & Electronics.During his first, formal, venture into the world of business, he founded a nationwide Bulletin Board System (B.B.S) that allowed people in Israel to connect to a computer that hosted a range of programs providing varying services. The system also allowed for the exchange of messages and the downloading of many different games and programs. The B.B.S 's were the forerunner of the internet as we know it today and it included many of the functions that exist in today’s internet. Merkur was a global pioneer who combined company advertising and coupons on pre-internet platforms when he conceived the idea of combining the ads and coupons of large Israeli commercial chains and organizations with the nationwide computer framework and in the games and programs used in Israel at that time.

Career

Beginning in 1998, Merkur promoted different areas of interest ranging from Hi-Tech and real estate projects to human resources, concentrating on the placement and employment of senior executives and administrators, finance and insurance, service centers, security companies and more. He employed thousands of employees for hundreds of the largest companies in Israel.

Real estate and parking lots

In 1999, Tsahi set up “Giant parking” and then “Success Parking" and Reit Parking as well as additional companies. Already in 2005 Success Parking became the largest parking company in Israel and also started operating public car parks. Success Parking was awarded, in 2005, the tender and a four year contract for the operation of five large parking lots in Tel Aviv belong to “Achuzat Hof [1]. Today Success Parking owns and/or operates some 100 parking lots and facilities. In 2008, Tsahi Merkur, through Success Parking, purchased from the billionaire businessman, Yitzhak Tshuva, a portfolio of nine parking lots in Tel Aviv, Netanya, Petach Tikva and Jerusalem with some 2000 parking spaces. The deal was worth some 40 million NIS.

Success Parking revenues for 2009 were more than 200 million dollars.

In 2010, Tsahi Merkur rejected a proposal from leading global investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to enter into a partnership with them and to lead a project for the purchase and management of a large portfolio of parking lots and facilities across North America following the business opportunity made possible due to the global financial crisis of 2008. Today Success Parking serves some 80% of all Israel’s drivers. Success Parking has adopted a policy of social awareness and responsibility and has provided either free or subsidized parking for many Israeli charitable and social foundations. Merkur is also associated with a number of real estate companies with extensive assets both in Israel and Europe. However, the vast majority of these assets are in countries in Europe and across the world with a minor portion being in Israel. As part of his activities in the area of real estate, Tsahi Merkur was, in 2010, part of an attempt to acquire control of “Azorim” during which he was in negations with Mizrahi Mortgage Bank, one of Boymelgreen’s biggest creditors, for a company value of 750 million NIS. In the same year, Tsahi also examined the possibility of entering into businesses and parking facilities in the United States with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars.

DRiiVZ

In 2011, Merkur established the DRiiVZ start-up. The company has set itself the goal of becoming a world leader for the provision of electric vehicle charging station solutions for charging station network operators and electric vehicle drivers. The company’s R&D center was set up in Tel-Aviv and developed management and cloud based, on-line billing solutions for electric vehicle charging infrastructures and for the management of energy supply and electrical networks. In 2013, the DRiiVZ management system was declared by the Dutch E-laad Foundation as the world’s leading management system out of all the systems evaluated by the foundation. The E-laad Foundation owns the largest network of public charging stations in Europe and is a founder member of the OCCP Consortium which includes leading private and public companies in the field of charging infrastructures for electric vehicles. DRiiVZ developed the innovative, on-line, energy management platform known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G). This system allows for the management of electrical supply networks from plug-in electric vehicles such as electric cars (BEV's) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) to the power grid and includes technologies that support energy efficiency. DRiiVZ has been chosen to take part in many unique and prestigious projects of some of the largest energy companies in the world. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) describes a system in which plug-in electric vehicles, such as electric cars (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), communicate with the power grid to sell demand response services by either delivering electricity into the grid or by throttling their charging rate.