UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

 

FORM 20–F

 

☐ REGISTRATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) OR 12(g) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

OR

 

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023

 

OR

 

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

For the transition period from ________________ to ________________

 

OR

 

☐ SHELL COMPANY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

 

Date of event requiring this shell company report _____________

 

Commission file number 000-31215

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter
and translation of Registrant’s name into English)

 

ISRAEL

(Jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)

 

2 HaCarmel Street, Yoqneam, 2066724, Israel

(Address of principal executive offices)

 

Arie Abramovich
c/o MIND C.T.I. Ltd.
2 HaCarmel Street
Yoqneam, 2066724, Israel
Tel: +972-4-9936666
investor@mindcti.com

(Name, Telephone, E-mail and/or Facsimile number and Address of Company Contact Person)

 

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act.

 

Title of each class		Trading symbol(s)		Name of each exchange on which registered
Ordinary Shares, nominal value NIS 0.01 per share		MNDO		Nasdaq Global Market

 

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act.

 

None

(Title of Class)

 

Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act.

 

None

(Title of Class)

 

 

Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer’s classes of capital or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report.

 

As of December 31, 2023, the Registrant had outstanding 20,124,826 Ordinary Shares, nominal value NIS 0.01 per share.

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. ☐ Yes ☒ No

 

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. ☐ Yes ☒ No

 

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. ☒ Yes ☐ No

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). ☒ Yes ☐ No

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer or an emerging growth company. See definition of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

Large accelerated filer ☐

Accelerated filer ☐

Non-accelerated filer ☒

Emerging growth company ☐

 

If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act ☐

 

The term “new or revised financial accounting standard” refers to any update issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to its Accounting Standards Codification after April 5, 2012.

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☐

 

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

 

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

 

Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing:

 

U.S. GAAP ☒

International Financial Reporting Standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board ☐

Other  ☐

 

If “Other” has been checked in response to the previous question, indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow. Item 17 ☐ Item 18 ☐

 

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). ☐ Yes ☒ No

 

(APPLICABLE ONLY TO ISSUERS INVOLVED IN BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS DURING THE PAST FIVE YEARS)

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed all documents and reports required to be filed by Sections 12, 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 subsequent to the distribution of securities under a plan confirmed by a court. ☐ Yes ☐ No

 

Unless the context requires otherwise, “MIND”, “us”, “we”, “our company”, “the company”, “the Company” and “our” refer to MIND C.T.I. Ltd. and its subsidiaries.

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

ITEM 1.	IDENTITY OF DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISERS	1
ITEM 2.	OFFER STATISTICS AND EXPECTED TIMETABLE	1
ITEM 3.	KEY INFORMATION	1
ITEM 4.	INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY	17
ITEM 4A.	UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS	25
ITEM 5.	OPERATING AND FINANCIAL REVIEW AND PROSPECTS	25
ITEM 6.	DIRECTORS, SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES	33
ITEM 7.	MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS AND RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS	40
ITEM 8.	FINANCIAL INFORMATION	41
ITEM 9.	THE OFFER AND LISTING	41
ITEM 10.	ADDITIONAL INFORMATION	42
ITEM 11.	QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK	56
ITEM 12.	DESCRIPTION OF SECURITIES OTHER THAN EQUITY SECURITIES	56
ITEM 13.	DEFAULTS, DIVIDEND ARREARAGES AND DELINQUENCIES	57
ITEM 14.	MATERIAL MODIFICATIONS TO THE RIGHTS OF SECURITY HOLDERS AND USE OF PROCEEDS	57
ITEM 15.	CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES	57
ITEM 16.	[RESERVED]	57
ITEM 16A.	AUDIT COMMITTEE FINANCIAL EXPERT	57
ITEM 16B.	CODE OF ETHICS	58
ITEM 16C.	PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES	58
ITEM 16D.	EXEMPTIONS FROM THE LISTING STANDARDS FOR AUDIT COMMITTEES	58
ITEM 16E.	PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES BY THE ISSUER AND AFFILIATED PURCHASERS	58
ITEM 16F.	CHANGE IN REGISTRANT’S CERTIFYING ACCOUNTANT	58
ITEM 16G.	CORPORATE GOVERNANCE	58
ITEM 16H.	MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURE	59
ITEM 16I.	DISCLOSURE REGARDING FOREIGN JURISDICTIONS THAT PREVENT INSPECTIONS	59
ITEM 16J.	INSIDER TRADING POLICIES	59
ITEM 16K.	CYBERSECURITY	59
ITEM 17.	FINANCIAL STATEMENTS	60
ITEM 18.	FINANCIAL STATEMENTS	60
ITEM 19.	EXHIBITS	61

 

 

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS AND SUMMARY RISK FACTORS

 

Statements in this Annual Report concerning our business outlook or future economic performance; anticipated revenues, expenses or other financial items; introductions and advancements in development of products, and plans and objectives related thereto; and statements concerning assumptions made or expectations as to any future events, conditions, performance or other matters, are “forward-looking statements” as that term is defined under the United States Federal Securities Laws. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated in such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those set forth under “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report as well as those discussed elsewhere in this Annual Report and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The following is a summary of some of the principal risks we face:

 

We may be unable to compete effectively in the marketplace;

 

We may fail to attract and retain qualified personnel;

 

Our backlog, revenues and operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter;

 

Our acquisition strategy could divert resources and disrupt our business;

 

We may not be successful in integrating acquisitions;

 

We may not adequately enhance our products and services and introduce new products and features to retain our customers and attract new ones;

 

Our products could be affected by cyber security breaches;

 

Our products may fail to comply with or to enable our customers and channel partners to comply with applicable privacy and other laws and regulations;

 

We may be unable to manage our international operations effectively;

 

Our Israeli tax benefits may be discontinued or reduced;

 

Our business may be negatively affected by exchange rate fluctuations;

 

We may lose the services of key personnel;

 

We may become subject to claims of intellectual property infringement;

 

Our use of “open-source” software tools may be subject to IP infringement claims or subject our derivative works or products to unintended consequences; 

 

We are subject to ongoing costs and risks associated with being a public company, including potential lawsuits;

 

System disruptions and failures may result in customer dissatisfaction and customer loss;

 

The market segment of small to medium size communication service providers may fail to grow;

 

We may lose existing customers or the use of our products may decline;

 

Our billing software and the systems into which it is integrated may contain undetected errors;

 

We may be unable to attract new messaging customers in a cost-effective manner;

 

We may be unable to increase adoption of our messaging products by enterprises;

 

We rely on network service providers for our messaging services;

 

We may have to lower our prices for messaging products;

 

We may have defects or errors in our messaging products;

 

We face a risk of litigation resulting from customer misuse of our messaging software to send unauthorized messages;

 

System disruptions and failures may result in customer dissatisfaction and customer loss;

 

Changes to regulations or technology vendor rules may prevent us from using some services; and

 

Our articles of association include forum selection clauses for certain claims brought under the U.S. securities laws or under Israeli law.

 

 

PART I

 

Item 1. Identity of Directors, Senior Management and Advisers

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 2. Offer Statistics and Expected Timetable

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 3. Key Information

 

A. [Reserved]

 

B. Capitalization and Indebtedness

 

Not applicable.

 

C. Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds

 

Not applicable.

 

D. Risk Factors

 

We believe that the occurrence of any one or some combination of the following factors would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

 

Risks Relating to our Business and Industry

 

If we are unable to compete effectively in the marketplace, we may suffer a decrease in market share, revenues and profitability.

 

All the markets we operate in are significantly fragmented and highly competitive. The principal competitive factors in our market include completeness of offering, global reach, ease of integration, product features, platform scalability, reliability, security and performance, brand awareness and reputation, the strength of sales and marketing efforts, customer support, as well as the cost of deploying and using our products.

 

Some of our competitors are larger and have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, more established customer relationships, larger budgets and significantly greater resources than we do. In addition, they have the operating flexibility to bundle competing products and services at little or no perceived incremental cost, including offering them at a lower price as part of a larger sales transaction. As a result, our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. In addition, some competitors may offer products or services that address one or a limited number of functions at lower prices, with greater depth than our products or in different geographies. Our current and potential competitors may develop and market new products and services with comparable functionality to our products, and this could lead to us having to decrease prices in order to remain competitive.

 

With the introduction of new products and technologies and new market entrants, we expect competition to intensify in the future. Some of our competitors have lower list prices than ours, which may be attractive to certain customers even if those products have different or lesser functionality. Pricing pressures and increased competition could result in reduced revenue, reduced margins, increased losses, any of which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

If we fail to attract and retain qualified personnel, we will not be able to implement our business strategy or operate our business effectively.

 

Our products require sophisticated software development, sales, professional services and technical customer support. Our success depends on our ability to attract, train, motivate and especially retain highly skilled personnel within each of these areas of expertise. Qualified personnel in these areas are in great demand worldwide and are likely to remain a limited resource. We cannot assure you that we will be able to retain the skilled employees we require. In addition, the resources required to retain such personnel may adversely affect our operating margins. The failure to retain qualified personnel may harm our business. In particular, we maintain a large engineering and support center in Iasi, Romania and have encountered many successful attempts from other technology companies to recruit our employees after we have trained them. If this phenomenon continues and increases, we may not be able to retain the highly skilled personnel we require to implement our business strategy and operate our business effectively. If we significantly raise the salaries of our Romanian employees, our results of operations will be harmed.

 

 

Our backlog, revenues and operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter.

 

Our results of operations, including the levels of our revenues, cost of revenues, gross margins and operating expenses, have fluctuated from quarter to quarter in the past and may continue to vary significantly in the future. These fluctuations are a result of a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, may be difficult to predict and may or may not fully reflect the underlying performance of our business. Our operating results may vary significantly from quarter to quarter due to a number of factors, including the following:

 

●

our ability to retain and increase revenue from existing customers and attract new customers;

 

●

our ability to introduce new products and enhance existing products;

 

●

competition and the actions of our competitors, including pricing changes and the introduction of new products, services and geographies;

 

●

changes in network service provider fees that we pay in connection with the delivery of communication services on our messaging platforms;

 

●

changes in foreign currency exchange rates;

 

●

expenses in connection with mergers, acquisitions or other strategic transactions;

 

●

potential termination of contracts by our customers; and

 

●

changes in our pricing policies.

 

Due to all of the foregoing, we cannot predict revenues for any future quarter with any significant degree of accuracy. Accordingly, we believe that period-to-period comparisons of our operating results are not necessarily meaningful, and you should not rely upon them as indications of future performance. Accordingly, in the event of a revenue shortfall, we may not be able to mitigate the negative impact on our operating results and margins in the short term. If we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of investors, we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class action suits.

 

In future quarters, our operating results may be below the expectations of public market analysts and investors, and as a result, the price of our ordinary shares may fall.

 

We seek to expand our business through acquisitions, which could result in diversion of resources and extra expenses and which may involve other risks that could disrupt our business and harm our financial condition.

 

It is part of our strategy to pursue acquisitions of business, products and technologies, or the establishment of joint venture arrangements in order to offer new products or services or otherwise enhance our market position or strategic strengths, and we are actively evaluating potential acquisition opportunities. The negotiation of potential acquisitions or joint ventures, as well as the integration of an acquired or jointly developed business, technology or product, could cause diversion of management’s attention from the day-to-day operation of our business. This could impair our relationships with our employees, customers, distributors, resellers and marketing allies. Future acquisitions could result in:

 

●

potentially dilutive issuances of equity securities;

 

●

the incurrence of debt and contingent liabilities;

 

●

amortization of intangible assets;

 

●

changes in our business model and margins;

 

●

research and development write-offs; and

 

●

other acquisition-related expenses.

 

In addition, we have limited experience with respect to negotiating an acquisition and operating an acquired business. Due to the multiple risks and difficulties associated with any acquisition, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in achieving our expected strategic, operating and financial goals for any such acquisition. If future acquisitions disrupt our operations, our business may suffer.

 

 

We may not be successful in the integration of our acquisitions.

 

We cannot assure you that we have identified, or will be able to identify, all material adverse issues related to the integration of our acquisitions, such as significant defects in the internal control policies of companies that we have acquired. In addition, our acquisitions could lead to difficulties in integrating acquired personnel and operations and in retaining and motivating key personnel from these businesses, while maintaining our corporate culture. In some instances, we may need to depend on the seller of an acquired business to provide us with certain transition services in order to meet the needs of our customers. Any failure to properly integrate and retain personnel, to recognize significant defects in the internal control policies of acquired companies or to scale and adapt our internal control policies and our reporting systems and procedures, and any interruptions of transition services, may require a significant amount of time and resources to address and may harm our company.

 

If we do not continually enhance our products and service offerings, introduce new products and features and adopt and monetize new technologies and methodologies in the marketplace, we may have difficulty retaining existing customers and attracting new customers.

 

We believe that our future success will depend, to a significant extent, upon our ability to enhance our existing products and services, to introduce new products, services and features to meet the requirements of our customers, and to adopt and leverage new technologies and methodologies such as cloud, microservices-based architecture in a rapidly developing and evolving market. We devote significant resources to refining and expanding our base software modules and to developing our products, services and development methodologies and tools. In some instances, we rely on cooperative relationships with third parties to assist us in delivering certain products and services to our customers. Our present or future products, services and technology may not satisfy the evolving needs of the communications industry or of other industries that we serve. If we are unable to anticipate or respond adequately to such needs, due to resource, technological or other constraints, our business and results of operations could be harmed.

 

If our security measures for our software, hardware, services or cloud offerings are compromised and as a result, our data, our customers’ data or our information technology, or IT, systems are accessed improperly, made unavailable, or improperly modified, our products and services may be perceived as vulnerable, which may materially affect our business and result in potential legal liability.

 

Our products and services, including our cloud offerings, store, retrieve, and manage our customers’ information and data, as well as our own data. We have a reputation for secure and reliable product offerings and related services, and we have invested a great deal of time and resources in protecting the integrity and security of our products, services and the internal and external data that we manage. See Item 16K below. Despite our efforts to implement network security measures, we cannot guarantee that our systems are fully protected from vulnerabilities related to IT-related viruses, worms and other malicious software programs, attacks, break-ins and similar disruptions from unauthorized tampering by computer hackers and others. Such cybersecurity incident could include an attempt to gain unauthorized access to digital systems for purposes of misappropriating assets or sensitive information, corrupting data, or causing operational disruption. Security measures in our products and services may be penetrated or bypassed by computer hackers and others who may gain unauthorized access to our or our customers’ or partners’ software, hardware, cloud offerings, networks, data or systems. They may use a wide variety of methods, including by use of artificial intelligence, or AI, which may include developing and deploying malicious software to attack our products third-party data, products or services incorporated into our own. Data may also be accessed or modified improperly as a result of customer, partner or employee error or malfeasance and third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce customers, partners, employees or suppliers into disclosing sensitive information such as usernames, passwords or other information in order to gain access to our data or IT systems or our customers’ or partners’ data or IT systems. Any of the foregoing occurrences could create system disruptions and cause shutdowns or denials of service or compromise data, including personal or confidential information, of us, our partners or our customers.

 

 

If a cyber-attack or other security incident (for example phishing, advanced persistent threats, or social engineering) were to result in unauthorized access to, or deletion of, and/or modification and/or exfiltration of our customers’ data, other external data or our own data or our IT systems or if the services we provide to our customers were disrupted, customers could lose confidence in the security and reliability of our products and services, including our cloud offerings, and perceive them not to be secure. This in turn could lead to fewer customers using our products and services and result in reduced revenue and earnings. The costs we would incur to address and fix these security incidents would increase our expenses. These risks will increase as we continue to grow our cloud and network offerings and store and process increasingly large amounts of data, including personal information and our customers’ confidential information and data and other external data, and host or manage parts of our customers’ businesses in cloud-based IT environments.

 

Any of the events described above could cause our customers to make claims against us for damages allegedly resulting from a security breach or service disruption, which could adversely affect our business, results of operation and financial condition.

 

Our products and platform and our business are subject to a variety of European and international laws and regulations, including those regarding privacy, data protection and information security, and our customers may be subject to regulations related to the handling and transfer of certain types of sensitive and confidential information. Any failure of our products to comply with or enable our customers and channel partners to comply with applicable laws and regulations would harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

We and our customers that use our products may be subject to privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations that impose obligations in connection with the collection, processing and use of personal data, financial data, health or other similar data. The U.S. federal and various state and foreign governments have adopted or proposed limitations on, or requirements regarding, the collection, distribution, use, security and storage of personally identifiable information of individuals. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and numerous state attorneys general are applying federal and state consumer protection laws to impose standards on the online collection, use and dissemination of data, and to the security measures applied to such data.

 

Similarly, many foreign countries and governmental bodies, including the European Union, or the EU, member states, have laws and regulations concerning the collection and use of personally identifiable information obtained from individuals located in the EU or by businesses operating within their jurisdiction, which are often more restrictive than those in the United States. Laws and regulations in these jurisdictions apply broadly to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and security of personally identifiable information that identifies or may be used to identify an individual, such as names, telephone numbers, email addresses and, in some jurisdictions, IP addresses and other online identifiers.

 

For example, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, took effect in the EU on May 25, 2018. The GDPR enhances data protection obligations for businesses and requires service providers (data processors) processing personal data on behalf of customers to cooperate with European data protection authorities, implement security measures and keep records of personal data processing activities. Noncompliance with the GDPR can trigger fines equal to or greater of €20 million or 4% of global annual revenues. There are also additional EU laws and regulations (and member states implementations thereof) which govern the protection of consumers and of electronic communications. If our efforts to comply with GDPR or other applicable EU laws and regulations are not successful, we may be subject to penalties and fines that would adversely impact our business and results of operations, and our ability to conduct business in the EU could be significantly impaired.

 

 

As well, we continue to see jurisdictions imposing data localization laws, which require personal information, or certain subcategories of personal information to be stored in the jurisdiction of origin. These regulations may inhibit our ability to expand into those markets or prohibit us from continuing to offer services in those markets without significant additional costs.

 

The uncertainty and changes in the requirements of multiple jurisdictions may increase the cost of compliance, delay or reduce demand for our services, restrict our ability to offer services in certain locations, impact our customers' ability to deploy our solutions in certain jurisdictions, or subject us to sanctions, by national data protection regulators, all of which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

Additionally, although we endeavor to have our products and platform comply with applicable laws and regulations, these and other obligations may be modified, they may be interpreted and applied in an inconsistent manner from one jurisdiction to another, and they may conflict with one another, other regulatory requirements, contractual commitments or our internal practices.

 

We also may be bound by contractual obligations relating to our collection, use and disclosure of personal, financial and other data or may find it necessary or desirable to join industry or other self-regulatory bodies or other privacy or data protection-related organizations that require compliance with their rules pertaining to privacy and data protection.

 

We expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws, rules of self-regulatory bodies, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection and information security in the U.S., the EU and other jurisdictions, and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, rules, regulations and standards may have on our business. Moreover, existing U.S. federal and various state and foreign privacy and data protection-related laws and regulations are evolving and subject to potentially differing interpretations, and various legislative and regulatory bodies may expand current or enact new laws and regulations regarding privacy and data protection-related matters. Because global laws, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy and data security have continued to develop and evolve rapidly, it is possible that we or our products or platform may not be, or may not have been, compliant with each such applicable law, regulation and industry standard and compliance with such new laws or to changes to existing laws may impact our business and practices, require us to expend significant resources to adapt to these changes, or to stop offering our products in certain countries. These developments could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

Any failure or perceived failure by us, our products or our platform to comply with new or existing U.S., EU or other foreign privacy or data security laws, regulations, policies, industry standards or legal obligations, or any security incident that results in the unauthorized access to, or acquisition, release or transfer of, personally identifiable information or other customer data may result in governmental investigations, inquiries, enforcement actions and prosecutions, private litigation, fines and penalties, adverse publicity or potential loss of business.

 

 

Because our revenues are generated in numerous countries, our results of operations could suffer if we are unable to manage international operations effectively.

 

Our sales are made in many countries, with different legislation and complex taxation rules and in many states in the United States. Managing our existing international operations and additional international markets requires significant management attention and financial resources. Our ability to penetrate some international markets may be limited due to different technical standards, protocols and requirements for our products in different markets. In addition, conducting our business internationally subjects us to a number of risks, including:

 

●

the burden of compliance with a wide variety of foreign laws and regulations;

 

●

staffing and managing foreign operations; and

 

●

adverse effects of political and economic instability.

 

We currently benefit from Israeli tax benefits that may be discontinued or reduced.

 

We have derived benefits from various programs, including Israeli tax benefits relating to our “Approved and Preferred Enterprise” programs, and the “Preferred Technological Enterprise” program under the Israel Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investment, 1959.

 

To be eligible for tax benefits as a “Preferred Technological Enterprise,” we must continue to meet certain conditions. Should it be determined that our Preferred Technological Enterprise programs have not met, or do not meet, the statutory conditions, our income taxes will increase.

 

Additional tax liabilities could materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

 

As a global corporation, we are subject to income and other taxes both in Israel and in various foreign jurisdictions. Our domestic and international tax liabilities are subject to the allocation of revenues and expenses in different jurisdictions and the timing of recognizing revenues and expenses. Additionally, the amount of income taxes paid or accrued is subject to our interpretation of applicable laws in the jurisdictions in which we do business. From time to time, we are subject to income and other tax audits in various jurisdictions, the timings of which are unpredictable. While we believe we comply with applicable tax laws, there can be no assurance that a governing tax authority will not have a different interpretation of the law and assess us with additional taxes. Should we be assessed additional taxes, there could be a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

 

Our business may be negatively affected by exchange rate fluctuations.

 

Approximately 53% of our revenues are denominated in Euro, and approximately 43% in U.S. dollars, or dollar. Approximately 12% of our expenses are incurred in New Israeli Shekel, or NIS, and approximately 74% in Euro or linked to the Euro. At the same time, the majority of our cash reserves and investments are denominated in dollars, and our financial statements are denominated in dollars. As a result, we may be negatively affected by fluctuations in the exchange rates between the Euro or the NIS and the dollar. We cannot predict any future trends in the rate of devaluation or appreciation of the NIS or of the Euro against the dollar. If the dollar cost of our operations in Israel increases, our dollar-measured results of operations will be adversely affected. We may choose to limit these exposures by entering into hedging transactions. However, hedging transactions may not enable us to avoid exchange-related losses, and our business may be harmed by exchange rate fluctuations.

 

 

We depend on a limited number of key personnel who would be difficult to replace. If we lose the services of these individuals, our business may be harmed.

 

The success of our business depends in large part upon the continuing contributions of our senior management, specifically on the managerial and technical skills of our founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Monica Iancu, and other members of our senior management. If either Ms. Iancu or other members of the senior management team are unable or unwilling to continue their employment with us, our business may be harmed.

 

If we become subject to a claim of intellectual property infringement, our business may be materially adversely affected.

 

If anyone asserts a claim against us relating to proprietary technology or information, we might seek to license the claimant’s intellectual property or to develop non-infringing technology. We might not be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms or on any terms. Alternatively, our efforts to develop non-infringing technology could be unsuccessful. Our failure to obtain the necessary licenses or other right or to develop non-infringing technology could prevent us from selling our software and could therefore seriously harm our business.

 

We use certain “open-source” software tools that may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims or that may subject our derivative works or products to unintended consequences, possibly impairing our product development plans, interfering with our ability to support our clients or requiring us to allow access to the source code of our products or necessitating that we pay licensing fees. 

 

Certain of our products contain open-source code and we may use more open-source code in the future. In addition, certain third-party software that we embed in our products contains open-source code. Open-source code is code that is covered by a license agreement that permits the user to liberally use, copy, modify and distribute the software without cost, provided that users and modifiers abide by certain licensing requirements. The original developers of the open-source code provide no warranties on such code. 

 

As a result of the use of open-source software, we could be subject to suits by parties claiming ownership of what they believe to be their proprietary code or we may incur expenses in defending claims alleging non-compliance with certain open-source code license terms. In addition, third-party licensors do not provide intellectual property protection with respect to the open-source components of their products, and we may be unable to be indemnified by such third-party licensors in the event that we or our customers are held liable in respect of the open-source software contained in such third-party software. If we are not successful in defending against any such claims that may arise, we may be subject to injunctions and/or monetary damages or be required to remove the open-source code from our products. Such events could disrupt our operations and the sales of our products, which would negatively impact our revenues and cash flow. 

 

 

Moreover, under certain conditions, the use of open-source code to create derivative code may obligate us to make the resulting derivative code available to others at no cost. The circumstances under which our use of open-source code would compel us to offer derivative code at no cost are subject to varying interpretations. If we are required to publicly disclose the source code for such derivative products or to license our derivative products that use an open-source license, our previously proprietary software products may be available to others without charge. If this happens, our customers and our competitors may have access to our products without cost to them, which could harm our business. Certain open-source licenses require as a condition to use, modification or distribution of such open-source that proprietary software incorporated into, derived from or distributed with such open-source be disclosed or distributed in source code form, be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works or be redistributable at no charge. The foregoing may under certain conditions be interpreted to apply to our software, depending upon the use of the open-source and the interpretation of the applicable open-source licenses.

  

We monitor our use of open-source code to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend. The use of open-source code, however, may ultimately subject some of our products to unintended conditions so that we are required to take remedial action that may divert resources away from our development efforts.

 

We are subject to ongoing costs and risks associated with being a public company, including potential lawsuits.

 

As an Israeli company subject to U.S. federal securities laws, we spend a significant amount of management time and resources to comply with laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, regulations, Nasdaq listing rules and the Israeli Companies Law, 1999, or the Companies Law, or the Israeli Companies Law. In connection with our compliance with Section 404 and the other applicable provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to assure that we continue to comply with these requirements. There is no guarantee that these efforts will result in management assurance that our internal control over financial reporting is adequate in future periods. If our internal controls are found to be ineffective in future periods, it could harm our operations, financial reporting or financial results.

 

Since we are a public company in the United States, the cost of our directors’ and officers’ liability insurance has significantly increased over recent years, as a result of which we have decided to purchase minimal coverage insurance. Our directors and officers rely on indemnification agreements provided by us. Accordingly, any lawsuits against our directors and officers could result in expensive legal expenses, settlements and judgments that we would be required to bear, which would harm our financial condition.

  

Risks Relating to our Billing and Related Services Business

 

System disruptions and failures may result in customer dissatisfaction, customer loss or both, which could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

 

Our billing systems are an integral part of our customers’ business operations. The continued and uninterrupted performance of these systems for our customers is critical to our success. Customers may become dissatisfied by any system failure that interrupts our ability to provide services to them.

 

Our ability to serve our customers depends on our ability to protect our systems and infrastructure against damages and unexpected adverse events. We also depend on various cloud providers and co-location datacenter providers which provide us environments, tools and applications on which we provide our products. Although we maintain insurance that we believe is appropriate for our business and industry, such coverage may not be sufficient to compensate for any significant losses that may occur as a result of any of these events. In addition, we have experienced systems outages and service interruptions in the past, none of which has had a material adverse effect on us. However, a prolonged system-wide outage or frequent outages could cause harm to our customers and to our reputation and reduce the attractiveness of our services significantly, which could result in decreased demand for our products and services and could cause our customers to make claims against us for damages allegedly resulting from an outage or interruption. Any damage or failure that interrupts or delays our operations could result in material harm to our business and expose us to material liabilities.

 

 

The customer base for our billing and customer care products is characterized by small to medium size communication service providers, or CSPs. If this market segment fails to grow, the demand for our billing and customer care software would diminish substantially.

 

Our billing and customer care products target small to medium size carriers. Our growth in this field depends on continued growth of carriers of this size. We cannot be certain that carriers of this size will be able to successfully compete with large CSPs. If this market segment fails to grow, the demand for our billing and customer care software would diminish substantially and our business would suffer. In addition, there may never be significant demand for new billing and customer care software by providers of telecom services.

 

If we experience loss of one or more existing billing customers, we may suffer a decrease in revenues, reputation and profitability.

 

A significant part of our revenues is derived from our existing customer base, maintenance agreements, customizations and additional professional services. Small service providers may be acquired by larger carriers and replace our solutions with the buyer’s existing billing platform, cease operations due to lack of funding, or terminate their relationship with us due to their financial condition, loss of market share and competitive pricing, as occurred with customers of ours over the years. If one or more customers cease using our solutions or services due to replacements or any other reason, our business and results of operations would suffer.

  

From time to time, our billing software and the systems into which it is integrated contain undetected errors. This may cause us to experience a significant decrease in market acceptance and use of our software products and we may be subject to warranty and other liability claims.

 

From time to time, our billing software, as well as the systems into which it is integrated, contains undetected errors. Because of this integration, it can be difficult to determine the source of the errors. Also, from time to time, hardware systems we resell contain certain defects or errors. As a result, and regardless of the source of the errors, we could experience one or more of the following adverse results:

 

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diversion of our resources and the attention of our personnel from our research and development efforts to address these errors;

 

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negative publicity and injury to our reputation that may result in loss of existing or future customers; and

 

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loss of or delay in revenue and loss of market share.

 

In addition, we may be subject to claims based on errors in our software or mistakes in performing our services. Our licenses and agreements generally contain provisions such as disclaimers of warranties and limitations on liability for special, consequential and incidental damages, designed to limit our exposure to potential claims. However, not all of our contracts contain these provisions and we cannot assure you that the provisions that exist will be enforceable. In addition, while we maintain product liability and professional indemnity insurance, we cannot assure you that this insurance will provide sufficient, or any, coverage for these claims. A product liability or professional indemnity claim, whether or not successful, could adversely affect our business by damaging our reputation, increasing our costs, and diverting the attention of our management team.

 

 

Risks Relating to our Messaging Business

 

Our messaging business depends on customers increasing their use of our messaging products, and any loss of customers or decline in their use of our products could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

Our ability to grow our mobile messaging business and generate incremental revenue depends, in part, on our ability to maintain and grow our relationships with existing messaging customers and to have them increase their usage of our messaging platform. If our customers do not increase their use of our messaging products, then our revenue may decline and our results of operations may be harmed. Messaging customers are charged based on the usage of our products. Most of these customers do not have long-term contractual financial commitments to us and, therefore, they may reduce or cease their use of our products at any time without penalty or termination charges. Messaging customers may terminate or reduce their use of our products for any number of reasons, including if they are not satisfied with our products, the value proposition of our products or our ability to meet their needs and expectations. We cannot accurately predict customers’ usage levels, and the loss of customers or reductions in their usage levels of our products may each have a negative impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. If a significant number of messaging customers cease using, or reduce their usage of our products, it could harm our operations, financial reporting or financial results.

 

If we are unable to attract new messaging customers in a cost-effective manner, then our business, results of operations and financial condition would be adversely affected.

 

In order to grow our messaging business, we must continue to attract new customers in a cost-effective manner. We use a variety of marketing channels to promote our messaging products and platform, such as regional customer events and telemarketing campaigns. We will incur marketing expenses before we are able to recognize any revenue that the marketing initiatives may generate, and these expenses may not result in increased revenue or brand awareness. We may make significant expenditures and investments in new marketing campaigns, and we cannot guarantee that any such investments will lead to the cost-effective acquisition of additional customers. If we are unable to maintain effective marketing programs, then our ability to attract new customers could be materially and adversely affected, our marketing expenses could increase substantially and our results of operations may suffer.

 

If we are unable to increase adoption of our messaging products by enterprises, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

 

Our ability to increase the customer base of our messaging business, especially among enterprises, and achieve broader market acceptance of our messaging products will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively organize, focus and train our sales and marketing personnel.

 

As we seek to increase the adoption of our messaging products by enterprises, we expect to incur higher costs and longer sales cycles. In the enterprise market segment, the decision to adopt our products may require the approval of multiple technical and business decision makers, including security, compliance, procurement, operations and IT. In addition, while enterprise customers may quickly deploy our products on a limited basis before they will commit to deploying our products at scale, they often require extensive education about our products and significant customer support time, engage in protracted pricing negotiations and seek to secure readily available development resources. In addition, sales cycles for enterprises are inherently more complex and less predictable, and some enterprise customers may not use our products enough to generate revenue amounts that justify our cost to acquire such customers. In addition, these complex and resource intensive sales efforts could place additional strain on our product and engineering resources. Further, enterprises, including some of our customers, may choose to develop their own messaging solutions that do not include our products. They also may demand reductions in pricing as their usage of our products increases, which could have an adverse impact on our gross margin. As a result of our limited experience selling and marketing messaging products to enterprises, our efforts to sell to these potential customers may not be successful. If we are unable to increase the messaging revenue that we derive from enterprises, then our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

 

 

To deliver our messaging products, we rely on network service providers for our messaging services.

 

We currently interconnect with network service providers around the world to enable the use by our customers of our messaging products over their networks. We expect that we will continue to rely heavily on network service providers for these services going forward. Our reliance on network service providers has reduced our operating flexibility, ability to make timely service changes and control quality of service. In addition, the fees that we are charged by network service providers may change daily or weekly, while we do not typically change our customers' pricing as rapidly.

 

Furthermore, many of these network service providers do not have long-term committed contracts with us and may terminate their agreements with us without notice or restriction. If a significant portion of our network service providers stop providing us with access to their infrastructure, fail to provide these services to us on a cost-effective basis, cease operations or otherwise terminate these services, the delay caused by qualifying and switching to other network service providers could be time consuming and costly and could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Further, if problems occur with our network service providers, it may cause errors or poor-quality communications with our products, and we could encounter difficulty identifying the source of the problem. The occurrence of errors or poor quality communications on our messaging products, whether caused by our platform or a network service provider, may result in the loss of our existing customers or the delay of adoption of our products by potential customers and may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

We may have to lower our prices for messaging products or change our pricing model from time to time.

 

We charge our customers based on their use of our messaging products. We expect that we may need to change our pricing from time to time. In the past we have sometimes reduced our prices either for individual customers in connection with long-term agreements or for a particular product. One of the challenges to our pricing is that the fees that we pay to network service providers over whose networks we transmit communications can vary daily or weekly and are affected by volume and other factors that may be outside of our control and difficult to predict. This can result in us incurring increased costs that we may be unable or unwilling to pass through to our customers, which could adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

Further, as competitors introduce new messaging products or services that compete with ours or reduce their prices, we may be unable to attract new customers or retain existing customers based on our historical pricing. As we expand internationally, we also must determine the appropriate price to enable us to compete effectively internationally. Moreover, enterprises, which are a primary focus for our direct sales efforts for our messaging products, may demand substantial price concessions. In addition, if the mix of products sold changes, including for a shift to IP-based products, then we may need to, or choose to, revise our pricing. As a result, in the future we may be required or choose to reduce our prices or change our pricing model, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

  

Defects or errors in our messaging products could diminish demand for these products, harm our business and results of operations and subject us to liability.

 

Our customers use our messaging products for important aspects of their businesses, and any errors, defects or disruptions to our products and any other performance problems with our products could damage our customers' businesses and, in turn, hurt our brand and reputation. We provide regular updates to our messaging products, which may contain undetected errors, failures, vulnerabilities and bugs when first introduced or released. Real or perceived errors, failures or bugs in our products could result in negative publicity, loss of or delay in market acceptance of our messaging platform, loss of competitive position, lower customer retention or claims by customers for losses sustained by them. In such an event, we may be required, or may choose, for customer relations or other reasons, to expend additional resources in order to help correct the problem. In addition, we may not carry insurance sufficient to compensate us for any losses that may result from claims arising from defects or disruptions in our products. As a result, our reputation and our brand could be harmed, and our business, results of operations and financial condition may be adversely affected.

 

 

We face a risk of litigation resulting from customer misuse of our messaging software to send unauthorized messages in violation of applicable laws.

 

The actual or perceived improper sending of messages with our messaging software may subject us to potential risks, including liabilities or claims relating to consumer protection laws. For example, the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 restricts telemarketing and the use of automatic SMS text messages without proper consent. The scope and interpretation of the laws that are or may be applicable to the delivery of messages are continually evolving and developing. If we do not comply with these laws or regulations or if we become liable under these laws or regulations due to the failure of our customers to comply with these laws by obtaining proper consent, we could face direct liability.

 

In addition, if our customers’ use of our messaging products will not adhere to privacy regulations and messaging rules, they and us may be blocked from sending more messages through specific channels and may be fined for such conduct. Our failure to prevent such infringements could have a material adverse effect on our business.

 

System disruptions and failures may result in customer dissatisfaction, customer loss or both, which could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

 

We provide real time messaging services to our customers. The continued and uninterrupted performance of these services for our customers is critical to our success. Customers may become dissatisfied by any service failure that interrupts their business, which could lead them to stop using our messaging services. This could materially and adversely affect our reputation and business.

 

Changes to regulations or technology vendor rules could materially and adversely affect our business.

 

We use messaging technologies and products, such as SMS and WhatsApp, to deliver messages from our customers to consumers. Changes in rules and regulations may prevent us from using some services, which may block our ability to grow our services and have a material adverse effect on our business.

  

Risks Relating to our Ordinary Shares

 

Our share price has fluctuated and could continue to fluctuate significantly.

 

The market for our ordinary shares, as well as the prices of shares of other technology companies, has been volatile. The price of our ordinary shares has fluctuated significantly over the years.

 

We do not control these matters and any of them may adversely affect our share price. In addition, trading in shares of companies listed on the Nasdaq Global Market in general and trading in shares of technology companies in particular has been subjected to extreme price and volume fluctuations that have been unrelated or disproportionate to operating performance. These broad market and industry factors may depress our share price, regardless of our actual operating results. Given the likely volatility that exists for our ordinary shares, sales of a substantial number of our ordinary shares could cause the market price of our ordinary shares to decline.

 

 

If we are characterized as a passive foreign investment company, our U.S. shareholders will be subject to adverse tax consequences.

 

If, for any taxable year, either (i) 75% or more of our gross income is passive income; or (ii) 50% or more of our assets, averaged over the year and generally determined based upon value, including cash (even if held as working capital), produce or are held to produce passive income, we may be characterized as a “passive foreign investment company”, or PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes. For this determination, passive income includes dividends, interest, royalties, rents, annuities and the excess of gain over losses from the disposition of assets that produce passive income.

  

As a result of our cash position and the value of our assets, we may be deemed to be a PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

 

If we are characterized as a PFIC, our shareholders who are residents of the United States will be subject to adverse U.S. tax consequences. Our treatment as a PFIC could result in a reduction in the after-tax return to shareholders resident in the United States and may cause a reduction in the value of our shares. If we were to be treated as a PFIC, our shareholders will be required, absent certain elections, to pay an interest charge together with tax calculated at the then prevailing highest tax rates on ordinary income on certain “excess distributions” including any gain on the sale of Ordinary Shares. The consequences of holding shares in a PFIC are described below under “Additional Information - United States Federal Income Tax Consequences - Passive Foreign Investment Companies.” Prospective investors should consult with their own tax advisors with respect to the tax consequences applicable to them of investing in our Ordinary Shares.

 

Our articles of association provide that unless we consent to an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any claims arising under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, which may limit the ability of our shareholders to initiate litigation against us or increase the cost thereof.

 

Our articles of association provide that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any claims arising under the Securities Act. Section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all such Securities Act actions, and accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. While the federal forum provision in our amended and restated articles does not restrict the ability of our shareholders to bring claims under the Securities Act, we recognize that it may limit shareholders’ ability to bring a claim in the judicial forum that they find favorable and may increase certain litigation costs, which may discourage the filing of claims under the Securities Act against the Company, its directors and officers. However, the enforceability of similar forum provisions (including exclusive federal forum provisions for actions, suits or proceedings asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act) in other companies’ organizational documents has been challenged in legal proceedings, and there is uncertainty as to whether courts would enforce the exclusive forum provision that we propose to add to our articles of association. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our articles of association to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

 

Risks Relating to Our Location in Israel

 

Potential political, economic and military conditions concerning Israel may harm our operating results.

 

While the vast majority of our employees are located outside of Israel, most of our senior management is located in Israel. Accordingly, our operating results may be directly influenced by economic, political and military conditions in and relating to Israel. Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, a number of armed conflicts have taken place between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Hamas (an Islamist militia and political group in the Gaza Strip) and Hezbollah (an Islamist militia and political group in Lebanon). In addition, Iran has threatened to attack Israel and is believed to be developing nuclear weapons. Iran is also believed to have a strong influence among parties hostile to Israel in areas that neighbor Israel, such as the Syrian government, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Any armed conflicts or political instability in the region, including an increase in the degree of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, could negatively affect business conditions and harm our results of operations. Furthermore, several countries, companies and trade groups restrict business with Israel and Israeli companies, and additional countries, companies and trade groups may restrict doing business with Israel and Israeli companies for political reasons. These restrictive laws and policies may seriously harm our operating results, financial condition, or the expansion of our business. The situation in Israel or the region could adversely affect our operations if our customers and/or strategic partners believe that instability could affect our ability to fulfill our commitments.

 

In October 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel’s southern border towns near the Gaza Strip and carried out attacks on civilian and military targets that were extraordinary in scale and brutality. Hamas and other terrorist groups also launched extensive rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip against civilian targets in various parts of Israel. As a result, Israel declared war against Hamas, called up hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers and launched an extensive military campaign against them. In parallel, border clashes between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist group on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon have intensified and may escalate into a greater regional conflict. To date, our business and operations have not been adversely affected by the war. We have back-up IT systems and remote work ability that we expect will enable our operations to function well in the event of an emergency.

  

It may be difficult to enforce a U.S. judgment against us, our officers and directors or to assert U.S. securities laws claims in Israel.

 

We are incorporated in the State of Israel. Substantially most of our executive officers and directors are nonresidents of the United States, and a substantial portion of our assets and the assets of these persons are located outside the United States. Therefore, it may be difficult for a shareholder, or any other person or entity, to collect a judgment obtained in the United States against us or any of these persons, or to effect service of process upon these persons in the United States.

 

We have been informed by our legal counsel in Israel that it may be difficult to bring original actions in Israel to enforce civil liabilities under the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. Israeli courts may refuse to hear a claim based on a violation of U.S. securities laws because Israel is not the most appropriate forum to bring such a claim. In addition, even if an Israeli court agrees to hear a claim, it may determine that Israeli law and not U.S. law is applicable to the claim. If U.S. law is found to be applicable, the content of applicable U.S. law must be proved as a fact, which can be a time-consuming and costly process. Certain matters of procedure will also be governed by Israeli law. There is little binding case law in Israel addressing these matters.

 

 

Subject to specified time limitations and legal procedures, under the rules of private international law currently prevailing in Israel, Israeli courts may enforce a U.S. judgment in a civil matter, including judgments based upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. securities laws and including a monetary or compensatory judgment in a non-civil matter, provided that the following key conditions are met:

 

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subject to limited exceptions, the judgment is final and non-appealable;

 

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the judgment was given by a court competent under the laws of the state of the court and is otherwise enforceable in such state;

 

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the judgment was rendered by a court competent under the rules of private international law applicable in Israel;

 

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the laws of the state in which the judgment was given provide for the enforcement of judgments of Israeli courts;

 

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adequate service of process has been effected and the defendant has had a reasonable opportunity to present his arguments and evidence;

 

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the judgment and its enforcement are not contrary to the law, public policy, security or sovereignty of the State of Israel;

 

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the judgment was not obtained by fraud and does not conflict with any other valid judgment in the same matter between the same parties; and

 

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an action between the same parties in the same matter was not pending in any Israeli court at the time the lawsuit was instituted in the U.S. court.

  

Provisions of Israeli law and our articles of association may delay, prevent or make difficult a change of control and therefore may depress the price of our stock.

 

Some of the provisions of our articles of association and Israeli law could, together or separately:

 

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discourage potential acquisition proposals;

 

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delay or prevent a change in control; and

 

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limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for our ordinary shares.

 

In particular, our articles of association provide that our board of directors will be divided into three classes that serve staggered three-year terms and authorize our board of directors to adopt protective measures to prevent or delay a coercive takeover, including without limitation the adoption of a “Shareholder Rights Plan.” In addition, Israeli corporate law regulates mergers and acquisitions of shares through tender offers, requires approvals for transactions involving significant shareholders and regulates other matters that may be relevant to these types of transactions. See Item 10.B “Memorandum and Articles of Associations - Mergers and Acquisitions under Israeli Law.” Furthermore, Israeli tax law treats stock-for-stock acquisitions between an Israeli company and a foreign company less favorably than does U.S. tax law. For example, Israeli tax law may subject a shareholder who exchanges his ordinary shares for shares in another corporation to taxation prior to the sale of the shares received in such stock-for stock swap.

 

 

Our articles of association provide that the competent courts of Tel Aviv, Israel are the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our shareholders under the Companies Law and the Securities Law, which could limit our shareholders’ ability to bring claims and proceedings against us, our directors, officers, and other employees.

 

Our articles of association provide that the competent courts of Tel Aviv, Israel are the exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on behalf of the Company, (ii) any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty owed by any of our directors, officers or other employees to the Company or to our shareholders, or (iii) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the Companies Law or the Israeli Securities Law, 1968, or the Securities Law. This exclusive forum provision applies to claims arising under Israeli law and would not apply to claims brought pursuant to the Securities Act or the Exchange Act or any other claim for which federal courts would have exclusive jurisdiction. Such exclusive forum provision does not relieve us of our duties to comply with federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder, and our shareholders will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with these laws, rules and regulations. This exclusive forum provision may limit a shareholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum of its choosing for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us, our directors, officers and employees.

 

Item 4. Information on the Company

 

A. History and Development of the Company

 

General

 

Our name is MIND C.T.I. Ltd. for both legal as well as commercial purposes. We were incorporated under the laws of the State of Israel on April 6, 1995 as a company with limited liability, and we are subject to the Israeli Companies Law and the regulations promulgated thereunder. Our principal executive offices are located at 2 HaCarmel Street, Yoqneam 2066724, Israel. Our telephone number is +972 4 993 6666. Our agent in the United States is MIND Software, Inc. and its principal offices are located at 10306 Eaton Pl., Suite 300, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.

 

The SEC maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information that is filed electronically with the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Our website address is at https://mindcti.com. Information contained, or that can be accessed through, our website does not constitute a part of this annual report and is not incorporated by reference herein, and we have included our website address in this annual report solely for informational purposes.

  

Principal Capital Expenditures

 

During 2023, 2022 and 2021, the aggregate cash amount of our capital expenditures was $64 thousand, $130 thousand, and $82 thousand, respectively. These expenditures were mainly for the purchase of equipment and licenses for software tools to be used by our engineering teams. We currently have no material commitments for capital expenditures.

 

 

B.  Business Overview

 

Overview

 

We develop, manufacture, market and implement convergent billing and customer care software solutions for communication service providers, including traditional wireline and wireless, voice over IP, or VoIP, broadband IP network operators, wireless internet service providers, or WISPs, LTE and 5G carriers, and mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs.

 

Our convergent billing and customer care solution supports multiple services, including voice, data and content services as well as prepaid, postpaid and pay-in-advance payment models in a single platform. It includes a powerful workflow engine to support the implementation of business processes, such as subscriber registration, order management, trouble ticket and debt collection, providing a high level of customization to our customer operation flows.

 

It also includes an integral point of sale (POS) solution that extends our offering to cover all dealer, store and cashier management and sales cycle related activities. Our solution is built upon a multi-layered architecture supporting real-time distributed processing, achieving high performance, scalability and high availability.

  

We enhanced our billing and customer care platform with optional modules that we developed in recent years, including online store (e-commerce), mobile app and self-service modules that enable high quality service with Omnichannel architecture.

 

MINDBill can be installed on-premises or in a cloud environment.

 

As part of our offering, we provide professional services, primarily to our billing and customer care customers, consisting of turnkey project delivery, customer support and maintenance services, integration, customizations and project management. Our professional services also include enhanced support options, known as managed services, which are performed from our offices. These managed services include performing day to day billing operational tasks.

 

In addition to our billing and customer care solutions, we offer unified communications analytics solutions and call accounting systems, which we call PhonEX ONE. PhonEX ONE is used by organizations around the world for call accounting, telecom expense management, traffic analysis and fraud detection. PhonEX ONE delivers a full-management solution including real-time and historical data dashboards, providing in-depth analysis of every session type specific to unified communications as well as traditional/VoIP PBXs, for monitoring and optimizing telephony communication networks and unified communications platforms. The flexible and scalable architecture of PhonEX ONE meets the needs of large enterprises, supporting an unlimited number of extensions, users and sites, it provides full functionality through a web browser, based on Microsoft SQL database and the advanced ASP.NET technology.

 

In addition, from 2019, following the acquisitions of Message Mobile GmbH, or Message Mobile and GTX GmbH, or GTX, we offer enterprise messaging services and wholesale messaging services.

 

Our enterprise mobile messaging platform enables enterprises to easily communicate with clients and partners via text / SMS, instant messaging or voice. The platform may be integrated with the customers' CRM or marketing automation platforms. The messaging services are used by businesses for direct communication with their customers for several reasons, such as customer care, notifications, appointments, OTPs (one-time passwords) and marketing.

  

Our wholesale mobile messaging business offers wholesale messaging services and messaging termination services on our software platform. The software is designed to provide advanced routing functionality enabling us to offer competitive wholesale and termination prices to other aggregators and service providers. The payment for the wholesale and termination services is based on volume (number of messages) and is being calculated and paid every month. In most cases, there are long-term contracts with other aggregators for the wholesale and termination services, but the prices are being negotiated ad-hoc based on demand.

 

 

Our Market Opportunity

 

Billing and Customer Care Industry

 

Billing and customer care are critical to telecommunications service providers as they enable them to manage customer relations, track and bill for usage, and launch, deploy and charge new services and bundles, marketing programs and rate plans. The need for comprehensive billing solutions is driven by the market trend that requires service providers to introduce new services, to be innovative in creating new product offerings and to optimize business processes for maximum efficiency. We provide tier 2 and tier 3 service providers with flexible, easy to deploy, truly convergent and scalable billing solutions.

 

From time to time, telecommunications service providers initiate searches for billing solutions to replace existing ones in order to offer additional services, reduce costs and improve service. In addition, our existing customers occasionally consider adding new modules that we developed to their existing platform, replacing other vendors or migrating to a newer version with up-to-date technology and enhanced functionality.

  

Also, from time to time, new providers surface and introduce new offering to the market or try to attract a specific targeted customer base. They build new infrastructure or resell traffic and initiate searches for billing solutions.

 

Mobile Messaging

 

The global messaging market, via SMS and IP messaging, is growing, with new use cases added every year and enterprises moving their operation and marketing activities from traditional mail and email channels to mobile messaging technologies. Application to person, or A2P, messaging continues to grow as the most effective way for businesses to engage with consumers and is also believed to be the most trusted form of communication. Our Communications Platform as a Service, or CPaaS, provides simple APIs with well-defined ways to easily integrate messaging into the enterprise’s legacy systems (such as CRM) or our own applications. Our platform helps our customers to reduce costly in-house development and the need to negotiate complex commercial agreements with service providers.

 

Our Strategy

 

Our objective is to be a leader in the market for convergent billing and customer care software for tier 2 and tier 3 service providers, to increase our presence in mobile messaging and to remain as profitable as possible in an increasingly competitive environment.

 

We introduced our billing and customer care software in 1997. We believe that our customer base, high customer satisfaction and our reputation for offering high quality, reliable platform provide us with brand name recognition. We continually invest in research and development to enhance our products with additional modules to address the digitalization of the telecom industry.

 

The key elements of our strategy to increase our presence in mobile messaging include:

 

●

Expand through acquisitions. We believe that A2P messaging needs are increasing worldwide, be it in SMS or in IP messaging. This market is consolidating, as most of our competitors are very active and successful in executing their acquisition strategy. We intend to continue targeting potential acquisitions that could benefit our growth;

 

●

Provide multi-channel messaging solutions. We intend to continue to develop our platform to support multiple messaging channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, Telegram and others in order to provide to our customers multiple messaging options for personal mobile communication; and

 

 

Billing and Customer Care Solutions

 

The key functionalities of our billing and customer care solutions are as follows:

 

●

Mediation. Providing real-time and batch event collection, interfacing with the voice, content, data, service delivery and routing network elements;

 

●

Provisioning. Setting up the ability of a subscriber to use services, enabling features and quantitative limits on network elements and legacy billing solutions;

 

●

Authentication, Authorization and Accounting. Authenticating subscribers, authorizing a particular usage and. calculating the amount to be charged to the subscriber;

 

●

Interconnect Billing. MINDBill generates reports that enable providers to bill for traffic and services that are being transported across their networks by other providers;

 

●

Roaming. MINDBill provides the ability to define and manage the required roaming contract terms and the applicable tariff plan for each roaming partner;

 

●

Virtual Providers. MINDBill allows carriers to have resellers of traffic under different brand names and manage them as Virtual Providers;

 

●

Multiple Services and Products Support. MINDBill allows CSPs to provide all types of services and bundle them into packages with special rates, discounts and promotions;

 

●

On-Line-Charging (OCS). Flexible real-time rating engine that facilitates a wide variety of billing plans and tariff parameters, content-based rates, rates based on the day of the week, time of the day, call origin and destination and multi-currency rates for international services;

 

●

Invoicing. Support for all stages of invoice generation, multiple billing cycles and invoice on demand. Invoices can be printed locally or exported to printing service bureaus, using a customizable invoice layout;

 

●

Account Receivables (A/R). MINDBill manages all A/R activities, supports multiple payment methods and a built-in debt collection process;

 

●

Collection procedures. Flexible collection solution that provides full monitoring and control of the collection treatment (dunning process);

 

●

Customer Support Representative Web Interface. User-friendly web interface that allows operators to perform all customer care operations from any location;

 

●

Self-Care Web Interface. Subscriber web interface that allows subscribers to obtain information about their account, including invoices, payments and usage details. Subscribers can also make payments and update subscription details;

 

●

E-commerce Web Interface. New module that supports the entire sales cycle of plans, devices and accessories;

 

●

Point of Sale (POS). Our POS enables operators to offer their products and services in retail stores, selling services, equipment and accessories to new and existing customers. POS integrates with external systems, such as credit card clearinghouses, external taxation engines, field service solutions and address validation systems;

 

●

Business Processes Workflow Environment. Creating tailored business processes such as customer onboarding, managing subscriptions, trouble tickets and debt collection; and

 

●

Monitoring. MINDBill includes a monitoring tool that enables 24x7 operational control, proactive monitoring and historical analysis of the platform’s behavior.

 

 

Enterprise Software

 

Our enterprise product, known as PhonEX ONE, is used by corporations for telecom expense management, call accounting, traffic analysis and fraud detection. It allows organizations to more effectively manage their telecommunications resources. PhonEX ONE is a call management system that collects, records and stores all call information and enables:

 

●

to generate near real-time reports on the enterprise’s communication use;

 

●

monitor quality of experience;

 

●

track agent’s performance in contact centers;

 

●

produce sophisticated reports and graphics for easy and effective analysis of call activity; and

 

●

allocate telephone expenses to specific departments, individual clients or projects.

 

PhonEX ONE can be installed on-premises or in a cloud environment.

 

Some of its major advantages are:

 

●

Quality of Service (QoS) Monitoring. PhonEX ONE enables quantification of the user’s perceived audio call quality so the organization can ensure the relevant communication quality of experience of its contact centers, calls between branches, out-going calls, etc.;

 

●

User centric. The PhonEX ONE user-centric architecture provides a consolidated solution for the collection, analysis, reporting, and managing of all the telecommunication and data traffic expenses;

 

●

Dashboard. A visual representation of the most significant information regarding calls, a useful tool that helps administrators to get a quick and relevant image of the general system activity. The Dashboard can quickly provide - through its graphical and non-graphical monitors - a snapshot over the outgoing and incoming calls, traffic and exceptions as well as several top requested reports;

 

●

Multi-site solution. The PhonEX ONE scales to support large multi-site organizations using voice and data equipment from multiple vendors. PhonEX ONE supports complex hierarchies on which any employee can be associated to any branch of the organization and under a separate matrix to any corporate department;

 

●

ASP.NET and MS-SQL database. PhonEX ONE is designed using the Microsoft .Net technology and has extensive configuration capabilities using XML files with server – client interaction;

 

●

Certification by IP switch vendors. PhonEX ONE is interoperable and certified on a timely manner with new releases of IP switch vendors, including Cisco and Microsoft;

 

●

Enhanced security. PhonEX ONE security management includes user authentication, security group restrictions, event log monitoring and encryption methodology of data base entries. This management tool enables a secure and easy control over the system;

 

●

Modular architecture supporting high scalability. The PhonEX ONE’s scalable system architecture supports an unlimited number of sites and extensions;

 

●

Guard and Alerter. The PhonEX ONE Guard and Alerter provide sophisticated tools for fraud prevention, alerting on phone misuse, budget surpass, possible toll fraud or other abnormal behaviors within the organization; and

 

●

Multilingual and multicurrency. The built-in support of multiple languages and multiple currencies enables telecom expense management for multinational organizations.

 

 

Mobile Messaging

 

Following the acquisition of Message Mobile and GTX in 2019, we offer messaging solutions to enterprise and wholesale customers. We plan to expand the range of services we offer and the technological vehicles used to deliver them to our customers, and to increase the rate of new customer acquisition by facilitating self-registration and on-boarding for new customers, and by offering competitive pricing and quality services.

 

Technology

 

Our software products are based on an open architecture, which was developed using industry standard API that enables it to readily integrate with other software applications. These application program interfaces create an object-oriented, multi-layered architecture that support a distributed environment. Our object-oriented technology enables the design and implementation of software utilizing reusable business objects rather than complex procedural codes. We implement our software in a distributed configuration. This allows further customization and solution adjustment based on modules to be installed on different servers to support the system’s scalability and security. We utilize a business processes workflow environment that facilitates the implementation of tailored and automated business processes to fit our customers’ unique business rules.

 

We believe that our technology allows us to offer products with the following benefits:

 

●

fast integration and interoperability with telecommunications equipment of major manufacturers, legacy systems and external software;

 

●

modular architecture that allows our products to be easily scalable and enables us to customize our software relatively quickly;

 

●

reliable products that support high availability of the service for mission-critical applications; and

 

●

security at all levels of the architecture.

 

Our messaging services are based on our modern, cloud-based messaging platforms developed by our subsidiaries in Germany.

 

Sales and Marketing

 

We conduct our sales and marketing activities primarily directly. We also work with appointed distributors and resellers throughout the world.

 

Our marketing programs are focused on creating awareness, interest and preference for our products and services. We engage in some marketing activities, including participating in industry trade shows and special events.

 

 

Principal Markets

 

The following table shows our revenues for each of the past three years classified by type of revenue and geographic region.

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022				2021
		(dollars in thousands)
The Americas (total)		$	7,897			$	8,536			$	9,421
Sale of Licenses			158				64				72
Services			7,739				8,472				9,349
Asia Pacific and Africa (total)			1,162				808				838
Sale of Licenses			33				139				88
Services			1,129				669				750
Europe (total)			11,633				11,382				14,702
Sale of Licenses			249				297				792
Services			11,384				11,085				13,910
Israel (total)			920				825				1,366
Sale of Licenses			118				111				596
Services			802				714				770
Total			21,612				21,551				26,331
Sale of Licenses			558				611				1,548
Services			21,054				20,940				24,783

 

Customers

 

Billing and Customer Care Solutions

 

Our billing and customer care solutions have been installed for a large base of customers worldwide, including:

 

●

Traditional telephony providers that evolved into quad-play providers, offering wireless, wireline, cable, IPTV, content and internet services, such as Moldtelecom, Belize Telemedia and Docomo Pacific;

 

●

Internet services providers that offer a triple play of broadband data, VoIP and video, such as Iskon, Vodafone Net and MSTelcom;

 

●

Wireless telephony providers, LTE operators and MVNO’s, such as KDDI America, Inc. and Chat Mobility;

 

●

Cable providers that also offer voice services, such as EastLink; and

 

●

Mobile Virtual Network Enablers (MVNEs), such as Pelephone Communications Ltd.

 

 

Enterprise Software

 

Our enterprise software products have been installed for a large base of customers worldwide, including international banking firms, global technology leaders, government agencies and other thousands of small to very large organizations.

 

Messaging Services

 

Our messaging solutions are used by more than 100 enterprise customers, mostly in Germany.

 

Competition

 

Billing and Customer Care Solutions

 

Competition in the market for billing and customer care software is intense and we expect competition to continue to be strong.

 

We believe that our competitive advantage is based on:

 

●

our ability to rapidly deploy a complete turn-key product-based solution;

 

●

our truly convergent platform using one database and one product catalog for both prepaid and postpaid subscribers;

 

●

our solutions’ functionality, which includes billing, customer care, point-of-sale, mediation, provisioning, online charging for multiple services and online store (e-commerce) modules;

 

●

our proven platform and our many years of experience to satisfy customer requirements; and

 

●

our flexibility to meet customer requirements in a short time frame.

 

Some of our competitors have greater financial, technical, sales, marketing and other resources and greater name recognition than we do. Some of our competitors have lower cost structure and compete with us on pricing. Current and potential competitors have established, and may establish in the future, cooperative relationships among themselves or with third parties to increase their ability to address the needs of prospective customers. Accordingly, new competitors or alliances among competitors may emerge and rapidly acquire significant market share and their solutions could achieve greater market acceptance than our solutions.

 

Enterprise Software

 

Our competitors in the market for enterprise software products are mainly local companies. To compete effectively, companies must be able to offer adequate technical support and ongoing product development. In addition, multinational companies prefer call accounting systems that can be installed at their various offices throughout the world, and therefore require call accounting products that are multilingual and support the local telecommunication requirements. The principal factors upon which we compete are scalability, ease of use, being certified by major IP switch vendors and the multi-lingual and multi-currency nature of our system.

 

Messaging

 

Our competition in the messaging market comes from a few international companies, such as Sinch AB and CM.com, and from many small, local service providers in Germany. Our competitive advantage is based on a combination of technology and service – our ability and will to tailor our services to the needs of enterprise customers.

 

 

C. Organizational Structure

 

Set forth below is a list of our significant subsidiaries:

 

●

MIND Software Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary, incorporated in the United Kingdom;

 

●

MIND Software, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary, incorporated in the State of Delaware;

 

●

MIND Software SRL., a wholly owned subsidiary of MIND Software Limited, incorporated in Romania;

 

●

MIND CTI GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary, incorporated in Germany; and

 

●

Message Mobile GmbH (with which our subsidiary GTX GmbH was merged in 2023), a wholly owned subsidiary of MIND CTI GmbH, incorporated in Germany.

 

D. Property, Plant and Equipment

 

Our headquarters are located in Yoqneam, Israel, approximately 50 miles north of Tel Aviv. We lease approximately 5,800 square feet at our Yoqneam headquarters and approximately 3,000 square feet in Luneburg, Germany. We also lease approximately 7,900 square feet in Iasi, Romania and approximately 7,400 square feet in Suceava, Romania. The offices in Iasi and Suceava are used primarily for software development and for customer support.

 

Item 4A. Unresolved Staff Comments

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 5. Operating and Financial Review and Prospects

 

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read together with our audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this annual report. The following discussion contains forward-looking statements that are based upon our current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in certain circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from these expectations due to inaccurate assumptions and known or unknown risks and uncertainties, including those identified under “Forward-Looking Statements and Summary Risk Factors” and under “Risk Factors” elsewhere in this annual report.

 

Overview

 

We were incorporated in Israel in 1995 and started providing our enterprise software products in that year. In 1997, we introduced our billing and customer care software for Voice over IP. We have enhanced our billing solutions since then to support multiple IP services, wireless and wireline carriers and triple play (voice, data and content) service providers. Following the acquisitions completed during 2019 (see below), we, together with our subsidiaries, also provide enterprise and wholesale messaging, communication solutions.

 

On March 25, 2019, we acquired Message Mobile GmbH, a leading provider of enterprise messaging, communication and payment solutions, based in Germany, with more than 15 years’ experience in the mobile industry. Its messaging platform enables enterprises to easily communicate with clients and partners via text / SMS, voice and instant messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram.

 

 

On September 25, 2019, we acquired GTX GmbH, a company based in Germany offering global SMS services for B-2-B customers, providing business partners a robust and easy-to-use system to send SMS messages to end-users at the best possible quality and attractive pricing, acting as a one-stop-platform for clients aiming to extend their messaging activities on different channels, e.g., WhatsApp, Chatbot on Messenger and Rich Communication Services (RCS). In 2023, GTX was merged with Message Mobile to form one legal entity that operates in the messaging segment.

 

In 2023, 53% of our total revenues were derived from providing our billing and customer care software, 37% of our total revenues were derived from enterprise messaging and payment solutions and 10% of our total revenues were derived from providing our enterprise software. In 2023, services represented 97% of our total revenues and license fees represented 3% of our total revenues.

 

In 2023 and 2022, one customer accounted for approximately 12% of our total revenues. In 2021, no customer accounted for more than 10% of our total revenues. We expect to continue to derive sizeable revenues from a small number of changing customers.

 

Consolidation in the telecom markets was not favorable to us in the last years, and we closed fewer deals than in previous years. Accordingly, we expect challenges in maintaining our revenues and our profitability levels in the near term.

 

Our dividend policy is to declare a dividend distribution once per year, in the approximate amount of our EBITDA for the preceding year plus net financial income minus taxes on income, subject to specific board of directors’ approval and applicable law. Since 2003, our cash dividends amount to approximately $5.78 per share (including the dividend declared in March 2024 in respect of 2023). The amount per share that we distributed in 2023 was $0.24, in 2022 was $0.26, and a dividend of $0.24 per share was declared in March 2024. The board of directors’ decision to approve the annual distribution is based, among other factors, on our cash position at that time, potential acquisitions and future cash needs. Our board of directors may decide to discontinue the dividend distribution in whole or in part at any time.

 

Revenues. In the billing and related services segment, we are paid license fees by our customers for the right to use our products, based on (i) traffic volume, which is measured by factors such as number of subscribers, and (ii) the functionality of the system, based on application modules that are added to the software. In relation to our professional services, other than maintenance services and managed services, we mainly quote a fixed price based on the type of service offered, estimated direct labor costs and the expenses that we will incur to provide these services. We also provide Agile development teams that perform solution enhancements, each dedicated for a period of time to a specific customer, for a fixed cost per person per month. Fees for maintenance services are based on a percentage of the solution fee and are paid annually, quarterly or monthly. Fees for managed services are primarily based on the number of subscribers or customers business volume and are paid monthly.

 

We primarily use two business models when we sell our solutions in the billing and related services segment, the license model and the managed services model. In the license model, the customer pays a one-time implementation fee, a one-time license fee for a perpetual license limited by the traffic metrics chosen by the customer, and additional fees to expand the chosen traffic metrics limitation. In addition, we are paid maintenance fees to renew periodically the maintenance agreement at the customer discretion. In the managed services model, the customer pays a one-time implementation fee, a monthly fee that includes a periodic license (right to use), maintenance and services fees, calculated by the metrics chosen by the customer (mainly, number of subscribers).

 

In the messaging segment, revenues are derived from customers using our messaging software platform, when the messaging service has been rendered, i.e., the messages are delivered to recipient. All the revenues in the messaging segment are recognized as services revenues.

 

We provide a revenue breakdown for our billing and customer care software, our messaging solutions and our enterprise call management software. We believe that this information provides a better understanding of our performance and allows investors to make a more informed judgment about our business.

 

 

Cost of Revenues. In the billing and related services segment, the cost of revenues consists primarily of direct labor costs and overhead expenses related to software installation and maintenance. Cost of revenues also includes, among other things, software license fees to third parties, primarily Oracle, hardware, travel expenses and shipping costs.

 

In the messaging segment, the cost of revenues consists primarily of fees paid to network providers. Our arrangements with the network service providers require us to pay fees based on the volume of text messages sent, as well as telephone numbers acquired by us to service our customers.

 

Research and Development Expenses. Our research and development expenses consist primarily of compensation, overhead and related costs for research and development personnel and depreciation of equipment. Research and development costs related to software products are expensed as incurred until the “technological feasibility” of the product has been established. Because of the relatively short time period between “technological feasibility” and product release, no software development costs have been capitalized. We expect to continue to make investments in research and development.

 

Selling and Marketing Expenses. Our selling and marketing expenses consist primarily of compensation, overhead and related costs, for sales and marketing personnel, sales commissions, marketing programs, promotional materials, travel expenses and trade shows expenses.

 

General and Administrative Expenses. Our general and administrative expenses consist primarily of compensation, overhead and related costs for executives and administrative personnel, professional fees, directors’ fees, insurance, costs related to being a public company, allowance for credit losses and other general corporate expenses.

 

Financial Income, Net. Our financial income, net consists mainly of interest earned on bank deposits and short-term investments, gains and losses from the change in value and realization of marketable securities, gains and losses from the conversion of monetary balance sheet items denominated in non-dollar currencies into dollars, net of bank charges.

 

Taxes on Income. See “Corporate Tax Rate” below.

 

A. Operating Results

 

The following discussion of our results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, including the percentage data in the following table, is based upon our statements of operations contained in our consolidated financial statements for those years, and the related notes thereto, included in Item 18:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022
		(% of revenues)
Revenues			100.0	%			100.0	%
Cost of revenues			49.7				46.6
Gross profit			50.3				53.4
Operating expenses:
Research and development			16.3				16.2
Selling and marketing			5.4				4.5
General and administrative			6.6				7.1
Total operating expenses			28.3				27.8
Operating income			22.0				25.6
Financial income, net			3.6				0.4
Income before taxes on income			25.6				26.1
Taxes on income			1.6				1.5
Net income			24.0	%			24.5	%

 

 

Comparison of the Year Ended December 31, 2023 to the Year Ended December 31, 2022

 

Revenues

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022
		(dollars in millions)								% Change
License sales		$	0.6			$	0.6				(8.7	)%
Services			21.0				20.9				0.5	%
Total revenues		$	21.6			$	21.5				0.3	%

 

Total revenues increased from $21.5 million in 2022 to $21.6 million in 2023, attributable to an increase in revenues in our messaging segment, from $7.7 million in 2022 to $8.0 million in 2023, offset by a decrease in enterprise products that are part of our billing and related services segment from $2.3 million in 2022 to $2.1 million in 2023.

 

Revenues from our billing and customer care solutions for service providers were $11.5 million in each of 2022 and 2023. We expect a future trend of market decline due to shrinking relevant telecom markets and strong competition.

 

Revenues from our messaging segment were substantially positively impacted by translation differences as a result of appreciation of the Euro against the dollar. Our revenues in Euro increased from €7.3 million in 2022 to €7.4 million in 2023, while in dollars the increase is from $7.7 million in 2022 to $8.0 million in 2023.

 

Revenues from our enterprise products decreased from $2.3 million in 2022 to $2.1 million in 2023. The decrease was primarily attributed to a few one-time major upgrades to the latest version at existing customers in 2022. We continue to expect that this market will generally decline.

 

Revenues from licenses were $0.6 million in each of 2022 and 2023. Revenues from services increased from $20.9 million in 2022 to $ 21.0 million in 2023, primarily as a result of the increase in revenues in our messaging segment discussed above.

 

The following table presents the geographic distribution of our revenues:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022
		(% of revenues)
The Americas			36.5	%			39.6	%
Europe			53.8				52.8
Asia Pacific and Africa			5.3				3.8
Israel			4.4				3.8
Total			100	%			100.0	%

 

Our revenues in the Americas decreased from $8.5 million in 2022 to $7.9 million in 2023. The decrease was primarily due to the loss of a few customers in this region during 2022. We expect this trend to continue.

 

Our revenues in Europe increased from $11.3 million in 2022 to $11.6 million in 2023. The increase was primarily attributed to the increase in revenues in our messaging segment. The percentage of total revenues in Europe increased from 52.8% in 2022 to 53.8% in 2023, due to the same reason.

 

Our revenues in Israel increased from $0.8 million in 2022 to $0.9 million in 2023, mainly due to a significant follow-on order for customizations from an existing customer, an Israeli carrier, in 2023.

 

 

Cost of Revenues

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022
		(dollars in millions)								% Change
Cost of sales of license		$	0.1			$	0.1				6.5	%
Cost of services			10.6				9.9				7.0	%
Total cost of revenues		$	10.7			$	10.0				7.0	%

 

Total cost of revenues in 2023 increased by $0.7 million, or 7%, compared with 2022, primarily due to the increase in our messaging segment revenues and the increase in personnel expenses.

 

Gross profit as a percentage of total revenues decreased from 53.4% in 2022 to 50.3% in 2023. The decrease was primarily due to the increase in our messaging segment which operates with significantly lower gross margins and the increase in personnel expenses.

 

Operating Expenses

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022
		(dollars in millions)								% Change
Research and development		$	3.5			$	3.4				1.2	%
Selling and marketing			1.1				1.0				20.4	%
General and administrative			1.4				1.5				(7.0	)%
Total operating expenses		$	6.1			$	5.9				2.2	%

 

Research and Development. The increase in our research and development expenses by 1.2% in 2023, compared to 2022 was primarily due to an increase in personnel expenses. Research and development expenses as a percentage of total revenues slightly increased from 16.2% in 2022 to 16.3% in 2023, due to the abovementioned increase in personnel expenses.

 

Selling and Marketing Expenses. Selling and marketing expenses increased from $1.0 million in 2022 to $1.1 million in 2023, mainly attributable to an increase in expenses for customer acquisition costs. Selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total revenues increased from 4.5% in 2022 to 5.4% in 2023, mainly due to the abovementioned increase.

 

General and Administrative Expenses. General and administrative expenses decreased from $1.5 million in 2022 to $1.4 million in 2023, mainly due to a collection of doubtful debt from one customer and decrease in administrative personnel expenses. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of total revenues decreased from 7.1% in 2022 to 6.6% in 2023, mainly due to the abovementioned decrease in expenses.

 

Impairment of Goodwill. No impairment of goodwill was required following the annual assessment performed during each of 2022 and 2023.

 

 

Financial Income, net. In 2023, financial income mainly consisted of interest income on short-term bank deposits and marketable securities in the aggregate amount of $737 thousand and gains from currency exchange rate fluctuations in the aggregate amount of $50 thousand, offset by bank charges in an aggregate amount of $27 thousand. In 2022, financial income consisted of interest income on short-term bank deposits and marketable securities in the aggregate amount of $262 thousand and interest income on a long-term trade receivable in the amount of $58 thousand, offset by a loss from currency exchange rate fluctuations in the aggregate amount of $99 thousand, interest on tax assessments in the aggregate amount of $60 thousand, realized and unrealized loss from marketable securities in the aggregate amount of $45 thousand and bank charges in an aggregate amount of $23 thousand.

 

Taxes on Income. Taxes on income are comprised of current and deferred taxes. On a regular basis, we estimate our actual current tax exposures and assess temporary differences resulting from differing treatment of items for tax and accounting purposes. These differences result in deferred taxes, which are included in our consolidated balance sheet. In 2023, our taxes on income in the amount of $359 thousand included current taxes on income, mainly in Israel, in the amount of $353 thousand and deferred taxes in the amount of $6 thousand. In 2022, our taxes on income in the amount of $330 thousand included current taxes on income, mainly in Israel, in the amount of $335 thousand and deferred taxes in the amount of $7 thousand, offset by a net refund outside of Israel in the amount of $12 thousand.

 

For a comparison of the year ended December 31, 2022 to the year ended December 31, 2021, please refer to Item 5 in our annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2022, filed with the SEC on March 14, 2023.

 

Our Functional Currency

 

The currency of the primary economic environment in which we operate is the dollar. Although 53% of our revenues are denominated in Euro, approximately 43% of our revenues are denominated in dollars and the vast majority of our cash reserves and investments are denominated in dollars. Thus, the functional currency of the Company and certain subsidiaries is the dollar.

 

The Company and certain subsidiaries’ transactions and balances denominated in dollars are presented at their original amounts. Non-dollar transactions and balances have been remeasured to dollars in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification, or ASC, 830, “Foreign Currency Matters”. All transaction gains and losses from remeasurement of monetary balance sheet items denominated in non-dollar currencies are reflected in the statements of operations as financial income or expenses, as appropriate.

 

For those subsidiaries whose functional currency has been determined to be a non-dollar currency, assets and liabilities are translated at year-end exchange rates, and statement of operation’s items are translated at average exchange rates prevailing during the year. Such translation adjustments are recorded as a separate component of accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) in shareholders’ equity.

 

Impact of Foreign Currency Fluctuations on Results of Operations

 

The dollar revenues and cost of our operations may be significantly influenced by currency fluctuations.

 

The weakening of the dollar in relation to the Euro and the NIS would have a negative effect on our profitability because we incur a significant portion of our expenses, mainly personnel expenses, in Euro and NIS.

 

The weakening of the dollar in relation to the Euro would have a significant positive effect on our revenues because we incur the majority of our revenues in Euro.

 

Because exchange rates between the NIS and the Euro to the dollar fluctuate continuously, exchange rate fluctuations and especially larger periodic devaluations would have an impact on our revenues, profitability and period-to-period comparisons of our results. The effects of foreign currency remeasurements are reported in our consolidated financial statements in current operations.

 

 

B. Liquidity and Capital Resources

 

Since our inception, we have financed our operations mainly through cash generated by operations. We supplemented this source by two private rounds of equity financing, the first in 1997 (with a follow-on in 1999) and the second in 2000 and our initial public offering in 2000, which raised total net proceeds in the amount of $44.3 million.

 

As of December 31, 2023, we had $3.0 million in cash and cash equivalents and $13.6 million in short-term bank deposits and marketable securities, and our working capital was $15.2 million. In our opinion, our working capital is sufficient for our requirements for the foreseeable future.

 

The majority of our cash and cash equivalents, our short-term bank deposits and marketable securities are denominated in dollars.

 

Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities. Net cash provided by operating activities in 2023 was $4.1 million, attributable to our net income of $5.2 million, non-cash related items, net, in the amount of $0.5 million, a net decrease in operating assets and liabilities items in the amount of $1.6 million. Net cash provided by operating activities in 2022 was $4.6 million, attributable to our net income of $5.3 million, non-cash related items, net, in the amount of $0.5 million, a net decrease in operating assets and liabilities items in the amount of $1.3 million.

 

The decrease in net cash provided by operating activities of $0.5 million from 2022 to 2023 is mainly due to extended payment terms for one of our customers.

 

Net Operating Working Capital

 

As of December 31, 2023, net operating working capital was $15.2 million, compared to $15.1 million as of December 31, 2022. The increase of $0.1 million is mainly due to a decrease in our cash position, offset by a decrease of $0.4 million in deferred revenues and increase of $0.3 million in prepaid expenses and other current assets.

 

Cash Deposits

 

As of December 31, 2023, we had approximately $13.4 million in bank deposits with maturities of between three and twelve months.

 

Marketable Securities

 

As of December 31, 2023, we held marketable securities of approximately $182 thousand.

 

Net Cash Used in Investing Activities. In 2023, we increased our investments in short-term bank deposits by $1.4 million. In 2022, we decreased our investments in short-term bank deposits by $2.0 million.

 

Net Cash Used in Financing Activities. In 2023, our financing activities included a cash dividend of $4.9 million. In 2022, our financing activities included a cash dividend of $5.2 million.

 

Capital Expenditures. The aggregate cash amount of our capital expenditures was $64 thousand and $130 thousand in 2023 and 2022, respectively. These expenditures were principally for the purchase of equipment, mainly for the upgrade of our hosted platform that services the messaging segment, vehicles and for our engineering teams. Although we have no material commitments for capital expenditures, we anticipate an increase in capital expenditures if we purchase or merge with companies or purchase assets in order to obtain complementary technology and to expand our product offerings, customer base and geographical presence.

 

Cash Dividends. Since 2003, we have distributed aggregate cash dividends of $5.78 per share to our shareholders, including $0.26 per share in April 2022, $0.24 per share in March 2023, and the dividend of $0.24 per share that we declared in March 2024. For information about our dividend policy, please see Item 8 “Financial Information - Dividend Policy.”

 

 

C. Research and Development, Patents and Licenses, etc.

 

We believe that investment in research and development is essential for maintaining and expanding our technological expertise in the market for billing and customer care software and to our strategy of being a leading provider of new and innovative convergent billing products. Our customers provide significant feedback for product development and innovation.

 

We have invested significant time and resources to create a structured process for undertaking research and product development. We believe that the method that we use for our product development and testing is well suited for identifying market needs, addressing the activities required to release new products, and bringing development projects to market successfully. Our product development activities also include the release of new versions of our products. Although we expect to develop new products internally, we may, based upon timing and cost considerations, acquire or license technologies or products from third parties.

 

We invested in research and development $3.5 million (or 16.3% of total revenues) in 2023 and $3.4 million (or 16.2% of total revenues) in 2022. The increase in 2023 was mainly due to an increase in personnel expenses, required in order to retain talent. Our engineering department comprised approximately 82 employees as of December 31, 2023.

 

D. Trend Information

 

Our billing and customer care solutions target tier 2 and tier 3 service providers. Some service providers seek solutions that are implemented upon a native cloud architecture. However, we have not yet completed the development of our native cloud-based solutions, and this has harmed our competitive position.

 

Service providers are facing many challenges, including the need to reduce cost and offer new services. Wireline telephony is diminishing. Mobile operators, after incurring high investment expenses in deploying 5G networks, need to monetize on the high-speed connectivity and rich content offering. Subscribers expect customer support, uninterrupted service and full digitalization, while telcos seek ways to reduce workforce and increase profitability. Our solutions address those challenges as they enable them to rapidly deploy all types of services for prepaid and postpaid, residential and business customers. Our solutions reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with its end-to-end capabilities, its built-in mediation, provisioning, point-of-sale and automated business processes. MIND enhanced its solutions with e-commerce, Mobile App and Self-service modules that enable high quality service with Omnichannel architecture.

 

There is a need to replace outdated billing systems that are not secure due to old technologies and that require high costs to operate. Most telcos in our relevant segment are reluctant to heavily invest in transformation projects and are turning to low-cost solutions. This buying behavior results in lower demand for our comprehensive and sophisticated end-to-end solutions.

 

Accordingly, our new customers in 2022 and in 2023 provided lower initial proceeds. Also, the telecommunication market is undergoing consolidation and intensifying competition, and we have lost a few customers. We expect that these trends will continue to negatively impact our revenues and profitability in 2024.

 

The trend we expect in the messaging business is companies turning to Application to Person (A2P) messaging to reach and engage with their target audience in a reliable, fast and secure way. Essentially, A2P messaging allows an application to send a message (typically SMS or IP Messaging). Examples of these types of messages include bank alerts, shipping notifications from online stores, appointment reminders, promotional and loyalty program notifications and two-factor authentication one-time passcodes for account security. 

 

 

E. Critical Accounting Estimates

 

Our discussion and analysis of our consolidated financial statements of operations are based upon our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates, assumptions and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, and expenses. On a regular basis, we evaluate and may revise our estimates. Actual results could differ materially from the estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

 

Goodwill impairment assessment is a critical accounting estimate. As a result of our acquisitions, our goodwill represents the excess of the consideration paid or transferred. Goodwill is subject to an annual impairment test or more frequently if impairment indicators are present. Goodwill impairment is deemed to exist if the net book value of a reporting unit exceeds its estimated fair value. When we perform such an analysis, we determine the fair value of a reporting unit, using discounted cash flows. In such analysis we apply assumptions that market participants would consider in determining the fair value of each reporting unit and the fair value of the identifiable assets and liabilities of the reporting units, as applicable.

 

Another critical accounting policy is revenue recognition. We have customer contracts in the billing and related services segment where revenue is recognized over time, as our performance does not create an asset with an alternative use and we have an enforceable right to payment, including a reasonable profit. Our determination of revenue to be recognized for these contracts accounted for over time requires management to make significant estimates of the total labor hours needed to complete the contracts, including updates to those estimates throughout the life of the contracts. The updates of the existing estimates are not expected to have a significant impact on our financial condition or results of operations.

 

F. [Reserved]

 

Item 6. Directors, Senior Management and Employees

 

A. Directors and Senior Management

 

The following table sets forth certain information regarding our directors and executive officers as of the date of filing of this Annual Report:

 

Name		Age		Position
Monica Iancu		66		President and Chief Executive Officer, Director
Arie Abramovich		37		Chief Financial Officer
Gilad Parness		55		Vice President Sales
Oren Tanhum		53		Vice President, Professional Services
Shoval Cohen Nissan		49		Vice President, Information Technology
Victor Balteanu		44		Vice President Engineering
Marian Scurtu		46		Vice President Customer Success
Liviu Serea		69		General Manager, MIND Romania
Joseph Tenne		68		Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee
Itay Barzilay		49		Chairman of the Board of Directors
Amnon Neubach		80		Director

 

The background of each of our directors and executive officers is as follows:

 

Monica Iancu. Ms. Iancu founded MIND and has been President and Chief Executive Officer of our company since inception and, until April 6, 2012, also served as the Chairperson. Ms. Iancu holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications (with expertise in Voice and Data Integration over the Ethernet) from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

 

Arie Abramovich. Mr. Abramovich rejoined MIND in December 2022 as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to rejoining MIND, Arie served as Corporate Assistant Controller at Albaad Massuot Yitzhak Ltd. (TASE: ALBA). From 2020 until 2021, Arie served as MIND’s Assistant Controller and prior to that as Senior Accountant at KPMG from 2017 until 2020. Mr. Abramovich holds a B.A. degree in Accounting from The School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he is a Certified Public Accountant in Israel.

 

 

Gilad Parness. Mr. Parness has served as our Vice President of Sales since June 2020. He joined MIND in 2004 as a team leader in MINDBill Support. Mr. Parness was promoted to Support Manager and later to Director Professional Services, leading the Sentori support team in 2007. In 2009 he joined our Sales and Account Management and in 2014 was promoted to Vice President of Enterprise Solutions leading the engineering, the support and the sales teams. Mr. Parness holds a Practical Engineer degree from Tel Chai College.

 

Oren Tanhum. Mr. Tanhum has served as our Vice President of Professional Services since 2016. He joined MIND in July 1997 as a software engineer and was involved in the development of all versions of our billing platform. Throughout his almost 20 years with us, he has been promoted in the R&D organization, filling leadership roles at various levels. Mr. Tanhum holds a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Haifa University.

 

Shoval Cohen Nissan. Mr. Cohen Nissan has served as our IT Manager since December 1998 and was promoted to Vice President of IT in 2016. Mr. Cohen Nissan leads the planning and management of the supporting infrastructure company-wide and the implementation of network security at the corporate level. He also acts as Purchasing Manager for our internal needs and customer solutions. Mr. Cohen Nissan holds a Practical Engineering degree from Braude College.

 

Victor Balteanu. Victor Balteanu has served as our VP Engineering since November 2020. He joined MIND in 2002 as a testing engineer. Between 2004 and 2006, he served as Subject Matter Expert at Amdocs (NASDAQ:DOX) and in 2006, he returned to MIND as a software developer. He was promoted within the organization to Team Leader in 2007, Group Leader in 2013 and Director of Engineering in 2019. Mr. Balteanu holds a B.A. degree in Automatic Control and Industrial Informatics from Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași.

 

Marian Scurtu. Marian Scurtu joined MIND in 2001 as a support engineer. Throughout his over 20 years with us he has been involved in the delivery of more than 40 projects around the world, filling various leadership roles including Project Manager and Program Manager. He was promoted to VP Customer Success in January 2022. Marian holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași and an M.B.A. from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi.

 

Liviu Serea. Mr. Serea has served as General Manager of our Romania office since January 2001. Before joining MIND, for over five years Mr. Serea managed a local company involved in hardware assembly, distribution and support. Mr. Serea holds a M.Sc. degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Politechnic Institute of Iasi.

 

Joseph Tenne. Mr. Tenne has served as a director of our company since August 2014. . Mr. Tenne serves as a director at AudioCodes Ltd. (NASDAQ), at OPC Energy Ltd. (TASE), at Electreon Wireless Ltd. (TASE), at Tarya Israel Ltd. (TASE), and at Sapir Corp Ltd. (TASE). From 2017 to 2023, Mr. Tenne served as a financial executive at Itamar Medical Ltd. (NASDAQ and TASE), which was sold in 2021 to ZOLL Medical Corporation, and from 2014 to 2017 he served as its Vice President Finance and CFO. From 2005 to 2013, Mr. Tenne served as the CFO of Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE and TASE) and Ormat Industries Ltd. (TASE). From 2003 to 2004, Mr. Tenne served as the CFO of Treofan Germany GmbH & Co. KG, a German private company. From 1997 to 2003, Mr. Tenne was a partner in Kesselman & Kesselman, Certified Public Accountants in Israel and a member of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwC Israel). Mr. Tenne served as a director at Enzymotec Ltd. (NASDAQ) from 2013 to 2018, at Orbotech Ltd. (NASDAQ) from 2014 to 2019, at Ratio Energies (Finance) (TASE) from 2005 to 2021, and at Highcon Systems Ltd. (TASE) from 2021 to 2024 . Mr. Tenne holds a B.A. degree in Accounting and Economics and an M.B.A. degree from Tel Aviv University, and he is a Certified Public Accountant in Israel.

 

Itay Barzilay. Mr. Barzilay has served as Chairman of the Board since 2023 and a director of our company since May 2020. Since 2019 Mr. Barzilay has served as the CFO of Personetics. From 2010 to 2019, Mr. Barzilay held a number of finance leadership positions at Amdocs and most recently served as Vice President Finance for Amdocs Technology & Media and for Amdocs Global Services (NASDAQ: DOX). From 2008 to 2010, Mr. Barzilay was the CFO of MIND. From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Barzilay served in several finance management roles with Avaya. Mr. Barzilay is a Certified Public Accountant, holds a BA in Accounting and Economics from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

 

 

Amnon Neubach. Mr. Neubach had served as an external director of our company from 2001 until 2014 and rejoined our board of directors in 2021. Mr. Neubach served as Chairman of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Ltd. from 2014 to 2021. Mr. Neubach has served in various privately held companies and public companies as a director, a member of executive committees and in some as chairman of the board. Mr. Neubach holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Business Administration and an M.A. degree in Economics, both from Bar Ilan University.

 

To the best of our knowledge, there are no family relationships between any of the directors or members of senior management named above. To the best of our knowledge, there is no arrangement or understanding with major shareholders, customers, suppliers or others, pursuant to which any person referred to above was selected as a director or member of senior management.

 

B. Compensation of Directors and Executive Officers

 

The aggregate direct remuneration paid to all persons who served in the capacity of director or executive officer during 2023 was $1.5 million, including $0.08 million that was set aside for pension and retirement benefits. This does not include amounts expensed by us for automobiles made available to our officers or expenses, including business, travel, professional and business association dues and expenses, reimbursed to officers, and do not include equity-based compensation expenses.

 

During 2023, we granted to our executive officers under our option plans options to purchase 28,000 ordinary shares at exercise price of $0.003 per share. All these options expire in 2028.

 

The table below outlines the compensation granted to our five most highly compensated office holders during or with respect to the year ended December 31, 2023. We refer to the five individuals for whom disclosure is provided herein as our “Covered Executives.”

 

Summary Compensation Table

 

Name of Officer		Position of Officer		Salary				Cash Bonus(1)				Equity-Based Compensation(2)				All Other Compensation(3)				Total ($)
Monica Iancu		President and Chief Executive Officer			240,000				240,000				-				53,853				533,853
Arie Abramovich		Chief Financial Officer			76,981				4,337				30,463				37,817				149,598
Gilad Parness		Vice President Sales			105,025				26,023				-				45,550				176,598
Shoval Cohen Nisaan		Vice President, Information Technology			105,116				26,023				-				49,548				180,687
Oren Tanhum		Vice President, Professional Services			92,105				22,770				-				42,586				157,461

 

(1)

Amounts reported in this column represent annual incentive bonuses granted to the Covered Executives or commissions based on performance-metric formulas set forth in their respective employment agreements.

(2)

Amounts reported in this column represent the grant date fair value computed in accordance with accounting guidance for stock-based compensation.

(3)

Amounts reported in this column include personal benefits and perquisites, including those mandated by applicable law. Such benefits and perquisites may include, to the extent applicable to the respective Covered Executive, payments, contributions and/or allocations for savings funds (e.g., Managers Life Insurance Policy), education funds (referred to in Hebrew as “keren hishtalmut”), pension, severance, vacation, car or car allowance, medical insurance and benefits, risk insurance (e.g., life insurance or disability insurance), convalescence or recreation pay, payments for National Insurance (social security), and other personal benefits and perquisites consistent with the Company’s guidelines. All amounts reported in this column represent incremental cost of the Company.

 

On May 4, 2017, our board of directors resolved that each of our external directors will be entitled to receive an annual fee of $13,200 and a participation fee of $680 per meeting. On August 9, 2017, payment in the same amounts to each of our non-executive directors was approved by our shareholders. At the meeting our shareholders also approved that the remuneration of those of our external directors who our Board classifies as “expert external directors” (as such term is defined in the Israeli Companies Law) will be 20% more than the remuneration of non-expert external directors.

 

 

C. Board Practices

 

Board of Directors

 

Our board is divided into three classes of directors, denominated Class I, Class II and Class III. The term of Class I will expire in 2025, Class II in 2026 and Class III in 2024. Monica Iancu is a member of Class I, Itay Barzilay and Joseph Tenne are members of Class II and Amnon Neubach is a member of Class III. At each annual general meeting of shareholders, directors will be elected by a simple majority of the votes cast for a three-year term to succeed the directors whose terms then expire. There is no legal limit on the number of terms that may be served by directors.

 

Pursuant to regulations that took effect in April 2016, a Nasdaq-listed company that does not have a controlling shareholder is entitled to opt out of the provisions of the Companies Law requiring at least two external directors and certain related requirements, so long as the company complies with the SEC regulations and Nasdaq listing rules regarding independent directors and the composition of the audit and compensation committees. In May 2016, our board of directors decided to adopt this relief, subject to the shareholder approval of related amendments to our articles of association, which occurred in August 2016.

 

Under the Companies Law, our board of directors must determine the minimum number of directors having financial and accounting experience, as defined in the regulations, which our board of directors should have. In determining the number of directors required to have such expertise, the board of directors must consider, among other things, the type and size of the company and the scope and complexity of its operations. Our board of directors has determined that we require one director with the requisite financial and accounting expertise.

 

Audit Committee

 

Under the Companies Law, our board of directors is required to appoint an audit committee, comprised of at least three directors. The members of the audit committee must satisfy certain independence standards under the Companies Law. Our audit committee consists of Mr. Joseph Tenne (Chairman of the audit committee), Mr. Itay Barzilay and Mr. Amnon Neubach.

 

Under the Companies Law, the roles of the audit committee include examining flaws in the management of the company’s business, in consultation with the internal auditor and the company’s independent accountants, suggesting remedial measures, approving specified related party transactions, establishing whistleblower procedures and assessing the company’s internal audit system and the performance of its internal auditor. The approval of the audit committee is required to effect specified actions and transactions with office holders, controlling shareholders and entities in which they have a personal interest.

 

The Companies Law defines the term “office holder” of a company to include a director, the chief executive officer, the chief business manager, a vice president and any officer that reports directly to the chief executive officer.

 

Under the Nasdaq rules, our audit committee assists the board in fulfilling its responsibility for oversight of the quality and integrity of our accounting, auditing and financial reporting practices and financial statements and the independence qualifications and performance of our independent auditors. Our audit committee also has the authority and responsibility to oversee our independent auditors, to recommend for shareholder approval the appointment and, where appropriate, replacement of our independent auditors and to pre-approve audit engagement fees and all permitted non-audit services and fees. We have adopted an audit committee charter, which sets forth the qualifications, powers and responsibilities of our audit committee.

 

 

Our audit committee also serves as (i) our compensation committee, as described below, and (ii) our nominations committee, authorized to recommend all director nominees for the selection of the board of directors, provided that no such recommendation is required in cases, if any, where the right to nominate a director legally belongs to a third party. In its capacity as our compensation committee, the audit committee is authorized to, among other things, review, approve and recommend to our board of directors base salaries, incentive bonuses, including the specific goals and amounts, stock option grants, employment agreements, and any other benefits, compensation or arrangements of our office holders.

 

Under the Companies Law, at least once every three years our compensation committee is required to propose for shareholder approval by a special majority, a policy governing the compensation of office holders based on specified criteria, to review, from time to time, modifications to the compensation policy and examine its implementation and to approve the actual compensation terms of office holders prior to approval thereof by the board of directors. If the shareholders do not approve a proposed compensation policy, the board of directors is entitled to approve it if the compensation committee and the board of directors, after re-evaluating the proposed policy, conclude that approving the policy is in the company’s best interests.

 

At our 2022 annual general meeting, the shareholders did not approve the renewal of our compensation policy that was approved by our shareholders at our 2019 annual general meeting. Our board of directors subsequently re-evaluated the policy, after receiving the compensation committee’s recommendation on the matter, and resolved that the renewal of the existing compensation policy is in our company’s best interests.

 

All the members of our audit committee are “independent directors” under the Nasdaq rules and meet the additional qualifications for membership on an audit committee and a compensation committee under applicable law.

 

Internal Auditor

 

Under the Companies Law, the board of directors must appoint an internal auditor proposed by the audit committee. The role of the internal auditor is to examine, among other things, whether the company’s actions comply with the law and orderly business procedure. The internal auditor must satisfy certain independence standards. Ms. Dana Gottesman-Erlich, C.P.A., partner of the accounting firm of BDO Israel, serves as our internal auditor.

 

Fiduciary Duties of Office Holders

 

The Companies Law imposes a duty of care and a duty of loyalty on all office holders of a company. The duty of care requires an office holder to act with the level of care with which a reasonable office holder in the same position would have acted under the same circumstances. The duty of care includes a duty to use reasonable means to obtain:

 

●

information on the advisability of a given action brought for his approval or performed by him by virtue of his position; and

 

●

all other important information pertaining to these actions.

 

The duty of loyalty of an office holder includes a duty to:

 

●

refrain from any conflict of interest between the performance of his duties in the company and the performance of his other duties or his personal affairs;

 

●

refrain from any activity that is competitive with the company;

 

●

refrain from exploiting any business opportunity of the company to receive a personal gain for himself or others; and

 

●

disclose to the company any information or documents relating to a company’s affairs which the office holder has received due to his position as an office holder.

 

 

Disclosure of Personal Interest of an Office Holder

 

The Companies Law requires that an office holder of a company disclose to the company any personal interest that he may have and all related material information known to him, in connection with any existing or proposed transaction by the company. The disclosure is required to be made promptly and, in any event, no later than the board of directors meeting in which the transaction is first discussed. If the transaction is an extraordinary transaction, the office holder must also disclose any personal interest held by:

 

●

the office holder’s spouse, siblings, parents, grandparents, descendants, spouse’s descendants and the spouses of any of these people; or

 

●

any corporation in which the office holder is a 5% or greater shareholder, director or general manager or in which he has the right to appoint at least one director or the general manager.

 

Under Israeli law, an extraordinary transaction is a transaction:

 

●

other than in the ordinary course of business;

 

●

other than on market terms; or

 

●

that is likely to have a material impact on the company’s profitability, assets or liabilities.

 

Approval of Related Party Transactions

 

Once an office holder complies with the above disclosure requirement, the board of directors may approve a transaction between the company and an office holder, or a third party in which an office holder has a personal interest. A transaction that is adverse to the company’s interest may not be approved.

 

If the transaction is an extraordinary transaction, approval of both the audit committee and the board of directors is required. Under specific circumstances, shareholder approval may also be required.

 

Office Holder Compensation

 

In general, all office holders’ terms of compensation – including fixed remuneration, bonuses, equity compensation, retirement or termination payments, indemnification, liability insurance and the grant of an exemption from liability – must comply with the company’s compensation policy. In addition, the compensation terms of directors, the chief executive officer, and any employee or service provider who is considered a controlling shareholder generally must be approved separately by the compensation committee, the board of directors and the shareholders of the company, in that order. The compensation terms of other officers require the approval of the compensation committee and the board of directors.

 

Disclosure of Personal Interests of a Controlling Shareholder

 

Under the Companies Law, the disclosure requirements, which apply to an office holder, also apply to a controlling shareholder of a public company. For this purpose, a controlling shareholder is a shareholder who has the ability to direct the activities of a company, including a shareholder that owns 25% or more of the voting rights if no other shareholder owns more than 50% of the voting rights, but excluding a shareholder whose power derives solely from his or her position on the board of directors or any other position with the company. Extraordinary transactions with a controlling shareholder or in which a controlling shareholder has a personal interest (other than compensation matters, which are discussed above under “Office Holder Compensation”), require the approval of the audit committee, the board of directors and the shareholders of the company, in that order. Except under specific circumstances, such a transaction needs to be re-approved in accordance with the foregoing procedure once in every three years. The shareholder approval must be by a majority of the shares voted on the matter, provided that either:

 

●

at least a majority of the shares of shareholders who have no personal interest in the transaction and who vote on the matter vote in favor thereof; or

 

●

the shareholders who have no personal interest in the transaction who vote against the transaction do not represent more than two percent of the voting rights in the company.

 

 

Shareholders generally have the right to examine any document in the company’s possession pertaining to any matter that requires shareholder approval. If this information is made public in Israel or elsewhere, we will file the information with the SEC in the United States.

 

For information concerning the direct and indirect personal interests of an office holder and principal shareholders in specified transactions with us, see Item 7.B “Related Party Transactions.”

 

Executive Officers

 

Our executive officers are appointed by our board of directors and serve at the discretion of our board of directors. We maintain written employment agreements with our executive officers. Each agreement terminates upon 30 days’ written notice and provides for standard terms and conditions of employment. All of our executive officers have agreed not to compete with us for 12 months (or 24 months in the case of Monica Iancu) following the termination of their employment with us. Monica Iancu is entitled to severance pay upon termination of her employment by either her or us (other than by us for cause) and to receive, during each month of the six-month period following termination of her employment by us, or by her for cause, an amount of salary and benefits equal to her former monthly salary and other benefits. Under Israeli case law, the non-competition undertakings of employees may not be enforceable.

 

D. Employees

 

As of December 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021 our total number of employees was 144, 153, and 160, respectively. The numbers and breakdowns of our employees as of the end of the past three years are set forth in the following table:

 

		As of December 31,
		2023				2022				2021
Approximate numbers of employees by geographic location
Israel			23				24				23
Romania			110				116				124
Germany			11				13				13
Total workforce			144				153				160
Approximate numbers of employees by category of activity
General and administration			15				15				14
Research and development			90				97				103
Professional services and customer support			31				32				32
Sales and marketing			8				9				11
Total workforce			144				153				160

 

E. Share Ownership

 

As of March 1, 2024, Monica Iancu beneficially owned 3,121,527, or 15.5% of our ordinary shares. None of our other directors or members of senior management beneficially owns 1% or more of our ordinary shares.

 

We have established stock option plans to provide for the issuance of options to our directors, officers and employees. Our 2011 Share Incentive Plan was extended in 2022 for an additional ten years. Under the 2011 Share Incentive Plan, our ordinary shares and/or options to purchase our ordinary shares may be issued from time to time to our directors, officers, employees, consultants and contractors at exercise prices and on other terms and conditions as determined by our board of directors. Our board of directors determines the exercise price and the vesting period of options granted. Unless otherwise is determined by our Board, any award granted under the 2011 Share Incentive Plan will have a four-year vesting schedule, such that 50% of the award will vest on the second anniversary of the commencement date and 25% of the award will vest on each of the third and fourth anniversaries of the commencement date.

 

 

As of March 1, 2024, options to purchase 501,000 ordinary shares were outstanding and options for 2,395,790 ordinary shares had been exercised. The options vest over four years, primarily commencing on the date of grant. Generally, options not previously exercised will expire five years after they are granted. Our board of directors elected the capital gains treatment afforded under Section 102 of the Israeli Income Tax Ordinance [New Version], 1961, or the Tax Ordinance, in respect of options and ordinary shares awarded to our Israeli employees under our option or share incentive plans after January 1, 2003. Accordingly, gains derived from options awarded to our Israeli employees and held by a trustee for two years from the date of grant, will generally be taxed as capital gains at a rate of 25%, and we will generally not be entitled to recognize an expense for the award of such options.

 

On June 5, 2023, Ms. Iancu adopted a Rule 10b5-1 Sale Plan in order to establish a systematic program by which Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. is instructed to sell on Nasdaq up to 1,800,000 ordinary shares held by her pursuant to the guidelines set forth therein. As of March 1, 2024, 195,098 shares had been sold under this plan.

 

Item 7. Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions

 

A. Major Shareholders

 

The following table sets forth certain information regarding the beneficial ownership of our ordinary shares as of March 1, 2024, unless otherwise specified, by each person who is known to own beneficially 5% or more of the outstanding ordinary shares.

 

Name of Beneficial Owners		Total Shares Beneficially Owned				Percentage of Ordinary Shares(1)
Monica Iancu			3,121,527	(2)			15.5	%
Morgan Stanley and affiliates			1,091,018	(3)			5.4	%
A-6684 Capital Ltd.			1,051,000	(4)			5.2	%

 

(1)

Based on 20,184,826 ordinary shares outstanding as of March 1, 2024.

(2)

Based on a Schedule 13G/A filed with the SEC on January 29, 2024.

(3)

Based on a Schedule 13G/A filed with the SEC on February 8, 2024.

(4)

Based on a Schedule 13G/A filed with the SEC on February 14, 2024.

 

As of March 1, 2024, there were eight holders of record of our ordinary shares in the United States who collectively held less than 1% of our outstanding ordinary shares. In addition to this amount, there were also 17,441,618 shares held by the Depositary Trust Company in the United States. The number of record holders in the United States is not representative of the number of beneficial holders nor is it representative of where such beneficial holders are resident since many of these ordinary shares were held of record by brokers or other nominees.

 

As of March 1, 2023, Ms. Iancu had beneficial ownership of 3,316,625 ordinary shares, constituting 16.5% of our outstanding shares.

 

B. Related Party Transactions

 

None.

 

C. Interests of Experts and Counsel

 

Not applicable.

 

 

Item 8. Financial Information

 

A.  Consolidated Statements and Other Financial Information

 

Financial Statements

 

See Item 18.

 

Export Sales

 

We conduct our sales activities primarily directly, by our sales force located in the MIND offices in Israel and Germany. For information regarding our revenues by geographic market, see Item 5 — “Operating and Financial Review and Prospects.”

 

Legal Proceedings

 

We are, or may be, from time to time named as a defendant in certain routine litigation incidental to our business. However, we are currently not a party to any legal proceedings which may have or have had in the recent past significant effects on our financial position or profitability.

 

Dividend Policy

 

Our dividend policy is to distribute a cash dividend once in each calendar year, in the amount approximately equal to our EBITDA plus financial income (expenses), minus taxes on income. Each dividend under the policy is subject to board approval and the requirements of applicable law. Our board of directors plans to declare the annual dividend when it approves the applicable year-end financial statements.

 

B. Significant Changes

 

Except as otherwise disclosed in this annual report, no significant change has occurred since December 31, 2023.

 

9. The Offer and Listing

 

A. Offer and Listing Details

 

Our ordinary shares have been listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol MNDO since August 8, 2000.

 

B. Plan of Distribution

 

Not applicable.

 

C. Markets

 

Our ordinary shares are quoted on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol MNDO.

 

D. Selling Shareholders

 

Not applicable.

 

E. Dilution

 

Not applicable.

 

F. Expenses of the Issue

 

Not applicable.

 

 

Item 10. Additional Information

 

A. Share Capital

 

Not applicable.

 

B. Memorandum and Articles of Associations

 

Objects and Purposes

 

We were first registered under Israeli law on April 6, 1995 as a private company, and on August 8, 2000 became a public company. Our registration number with the Israeli registrar of companies is 51-213448-7. The full details of our objects and purposes can be found in Section 2 of our Memorandum of Association filed with the Israeli registrar of companies. Among the objects and purposes stipulated are the following: “to engage in any kind of commercial and/or productive business and to engage in any action or endeavor which the company’s managers consider to be beneficial to the company.”

 

Transfer of Shares and Notices

 

Fully paid ordinary shares are issued in registered form and may be freely transferred pursuant to our articles of association unless such transfer is restricted or prohibited by another instrument. Unless otherwise prescribed by law, we will provide at least 21 calendar days’ prior notice of any general shareholders meeting.

 

Election of Directors

 

The ordinary shares do not have cumulative voting rights in the election of directors. Thus, the holders of ordinary shares conferring more than 50% of the voting power have the power to elect all the directors, to the exclusion of the remaining shareholders. Our board of directors is divided into three classes of directors serving staggered three-year terms.

 

Dividend and Liquidation Rights

 

Dividends on our ordinary shares may be paid only out of profits and other surplus, as defined in the Companies Law, as of our most recent financial statements or as accrued over a period of two years, whichever is higher, unless otherwise approved by a court order. Our board of directors is authorized to declare dividends, provided that there is no reasonable concern that the dividend will prevent us from satisfying our existing and foreseeable obligations as they become due. In the event of our liquidation, after satisfaction of liabilities to creditors, our assets will be distributed to the holders of ordinary shares in proportion to their respective holdings. Dividend or liquidation right may be affected by the grant of preferential dividends or distribution rights to the holders of a class of shares with preferential rights that may be authorized in the future.

 

Voting, Shareholders’ Meetings and Resolutions

 

Holders of ordinary shares have one vote for each ordinary share held on all matters submitted to a vote of shareholders.

 

These voting rights may be affected by the grant of any special voting rights to the holders of a class of shares with preferential rights that may be authorized in the future.

 

We have two types of general shareholders meetings: the annual general meetings and extraordinary general meetings. These meetings may be held either in Israel or in any other place the board of directors determines. An annual general meeting must be held in each calendar year, but not more than 15 months after the last annual general meeting. Our board of directors may convene an extraordinary meeting, from time to time, at its discretion and is required to do so upon the request of shareholders holding at least 5% of our ordinary shares.

 

 

The quorum required for an ordinary meeting of shareholders consists of at least two shareholders present in person or by proxy who hold or represent between them at least 25% of the outstanding voting shares, unless otherwise required by applicable rules. Nasdaq generally requires a quorum of 33-1/3%, but we have an exemption from that requirement and instead follow the generally accepted business practice for companies in Israel. A meeting adjourned for lack of a quorum generally is adjourned to the same day in the following week at the same time and place or any time and place as the Chairman may designate with the consent of the shareholders voting on the matter adjourned. At such reconvened meeting, the required quorum consists of any two members present in person or by proxy, unless otherwise required by applicable rules.

 

Under the Companies Law, unless otherwise provided in the articles of association or applicable law, all resolutions of the shareholders require a simple majority of the shares present, in person or by proxy, and voting on the matter. However, our articles of association require approval of 75% of the shares present and voting to remove directors or change the structure of our staggered board of directors.

 

We file annual reports on Form 20-F electronically with the SEC and post a copy on our website.

 

Duties of Shareholders

 

Under the Companies Law, each and every shareholder has a duty to act in good faith in exercising his rights and fulfilling his obligations towards the company and other shareholders and to refrain from abusing his power in the company, such as in voting in the general meeting of shareholders on the following matters:

 

●

any amendment to the articles of association;

 

●

an increase of the company’s authorized share capital;

 

●

a merger; or

 

●

approval of certain actions and transactions which require shareholder approval.

 

In addition, each and every shareholder has the general duty to refrain from depriving rights of other shareholders. Furthermore, any controlling shareholder, any shareholder who knows that it possesses the power to determine the outcome of a shareholder vote and any shareholder that, pursuant to the provisions of the articles of association, has the power to appoint or to prevent the appointment of an office holder in the company or any other power toward the company is under a duty to act in fairness towards the company. The Companies Law does not describe the substance of this duty of fairness. These various shareholder duties, which typically do not apply to shareholders of U.S. companies, may restrict the ability of a shareholder to act in what the shareholder perceives to be its own best interests.

 

Restrictions on Non-Israeli Residents

 

The ownership or voting of our ordinary shares by non-residents of Israel, except with respect to citizens of countries which are in a state of war with Israel, is not restricted in any way by our memorandum of association or articles of association or by the laws of the State of Israel.

 

Mergers and Acquisitions under Israeli Law

 

The Companies Law includes provisions that allow a merger transaction and requires that each company that is party to a merger approve the transaction by its board of directors and a vote of the majority of its shares, voting on the proposed merger at a shareholders’ meeting. For purposes of the shareholder vote, unless a court rules otherwise, the merger will not be deemed approved if a majority of the shares held by parties other than the other party to the merger, or by any person who holds 25% or more of the shares or the right to appoint 25% or more of the directors of the other party, vote against the merger. Upon the request of a creditor of either party of the proposed merger, the court may delay or prevent the merger if it concludes that there exists a reasonable concern that as a result of the merger, the surviving company will be unable to satisfy the obligations of any of the parties to the merger. In addition, a merger may not be completed unless at least (i) 50 days have passed from the time that a proposal of the merger has been filed by each party with the Israeli Registrar of Companies and (ii) 30 days have passed since the merger was approved by the shareholders of each party.

 

 

The Companies Law also provides that an acquisition of shares of public company must be made by means of tender offer if as a result of the acquisition the purchaser would become a 25% or more shareholder of the company and there is no 25% or more shareholder in the company. In addition, an acquisition of shares of a public company must be made by means of a tender offer if as a result of the acquisition the purchaser would become a greater than 45% shareholder of the company and there is greater than 45% shareholder in the company. These requirements do not apply if the acquisition (i) is made in a private placement that received shareholder approval, (ii) was from a 25% shareholder of the company and resulted in the acquirer becoming a 25% shareholder of the company or (iii) was from a greater than 45% shareholder of the company and resulted in the acquirer becoming a greater than 45% shareholder of the company. The tender offer must be extended to all shareholders, but the offer or is not required to purchase more than 5% of the company’s outstanding shares, regardless of how many shares are tendered by shareholders. The tender offer may be consummated only if (i) at least 5% of the company’s outstanding shares will be acquired by the offer and (ii) the number of shares tendered in the offer exceeds the number of shares whose holders objected to the offer.

 

If as a result of an acquisition of shares the acquirer will hold more than 90% of a company’s outstanding shares, the Companies Law requires that the acquisition be made by means of a tender offer for all of the outstanding shares. If as a result of a full tender offer the acquirer would own more than 95% of the outstanding shares, then all the shares that the acquirer offered to purchase will be transferred to it. The law provides for appraisal rights if any shareholder files a request in court within six months following the consummation of a full tender offer, although the acquirer may stipulate that any tendering shareholders forfeit their appraisal rights. If as a result of a full tender offer the acquirer would own 95% or less of the outstanding shares, then the acquirer may not acquire shares that will cause his shareholding to exceed 90% of the outstanding shares.

 

Finally, Israeli tax law treats stock-for-stock acquisitions between an Israeli company and a foreign company less favorably than does U.S. tax law. For example, Israeli tax law subjects a shareholder who exchanges his ordinary shares for shares in another corporation to taxation prior to the sale of the shares received in such stock-for-stock swap.

 

Modification of Class Rights

 

Our articles of association provide that the rights attached to any class (unless otherwise provided by the terms of such class), such as voting, rights to dividends and the like, may be varied by a shareholders resolution, subject to the approval of the holders of a majority of the issued shares of that class.

 

Board of Directors

 

According to the Companies Law and our articles of association, the oversight of the management of our business is vested in our board of directors. The board of directors may exercise all such powers and may take all such actions that are not specifically granted to our shareholders. As part of its powers, our board of directors may cause the company to borrow or secure payment of any sum or sums of money, at such times and upon such terms and conditions as it thinks fit, including the grants of security interests on all or any part of the property of the company.

 

A resolution proposed at any meeting of the board of directors shall be deemed adopted if approved by a majority of the directors present and voting on the matter. For additional information, please see Item 6.C “Board Practices.”

 

Exculpation of Office Holders

 

Under the Companies Law, an Israeli company may not exempt an office holder from liability for a breach of his duty of loyalty but may exempt in advance an office holder from his liability to the company, in whole or in part, for a breach of his duty of care (except in connection with distributions) provided the articles of association of the company allow it to do so. Our articles allow us to exempt our office holders to the fullest extent permitted by law.

 

 

Insurance of Office Holders

 

Our articles of association provide that, subject to the provisions of the Companies Law, we may enter into a contract for the insurance of the liability of any of our office holders, with respect to an act performed in the capacity of an office holder for:

 

●

a breach of his duty of care to us or to another person;

 

●

a breach of his duty of loyalty to us, provided that the office holder acted in good faith and had reasonable cause to assume that his act would not prejudice our interests; or

 

●

a financial liability imposed upon him in favor of another person.

 

Indemnification of Office Holders

 

Our articles of association provide that we may indemnify an office holder against the following obligations and expenses imposed on or incurred by the office holder with respect to an act performed in the capacity of an office holder:

 

●

a financial obligation imposed on him in favor of another person by a court judgment, including a settlement or an arbitrator’s award approved by the court; such indemnification may be approved (i) after the liability has been incurred or (ii) in advance, provided that our undertaking to indemnify is limited to events that our board of directors believes are foreseeable in light of our actual operations at the time of providing the undertaking and to a sum or criterion that our board of directors determines to be reasonable under the circumstances;

 

●

reasonable litigation expenses, including attorneys’ fees, expended by the office holder as a result of an investigation or proceeding instituted against him by a competent authority, provided that such investigation or proceeding concluded without the filing of an indictment against him and either (A) concluded without the imposition of any financial liability in lieu of criminal proceedings or (B) concluded with the imposition of a financial liability in lieu of criminal proceedings but relates to a criminal offense that does not require proof of criminal intent or in connection with a financial sanction;

 

●

reasonable litigation expenses, including attorneys’ fees, expended by the office holder or charged to him by a court in connection with: (A) proceedings we institute against him or instituted on our behalf or by another person; or (B) a criminal charge from which he was acquitted; or (C) a criminal proceeding in which he was convicted of an offense that does not require proof of criminal intent; and

 

●

a financial obligation imposed upon an office holder and reasonable litigation expenses, including attorney fees, expended by the office holder as a result of an administrative proceeding instituted against him. Without derogating from the generality of the foregoing, such obligation or expense will include a payment which the office holder is obligated to make to an injured party as set forth in Section 52(54)(a)(1)(a) of the Securities Law and expenses that the office holder incurred in connection with a proceeding under Chapters H’3, H’4 or I’1 of the Securities Law, including reasonable legal expenses, which term includes attorney fees.

 

Limitations on Exculpation, Insurance and Indemnification

 

The Companies Law provides that a company may not exculpate or indemnify an office holder, or enter into an insurance contract, which would provide coverage for any monetary liability incurred as a result of any of the following:

 

●

a breach by the office holder of his duty of loyalty unless, with respect to indemnification or insurance coverage, the office holder acted in good faith and had a reasonable basis to believe that the act would not prejudice the company;

 

●

a breach by the office holder of his duty of care if the breach was done intentionally or recklessly;

 

●

any act or omission done with the intent to derive an illegal personal benefit; or

 

●

any fine levied against the office holder.

  

In addition, under the Companies Law, indemnification of, and procurement of insurance coverage for, our office holders must be approved by our audit committee and our board of directors and, if the beneficiary is a director, by our shareholders.

 

We have agreed to exempt from liability and indemnify our office holders to the fullest extent permitted under the Companies Law. We currently do not maintain directors and officers liability insurance for the benefit of our office holders.

 

 

C. Material Contracts

 

None.

 

D. Exchange Controls

 

There are currently no Israeli currency control restrictions on payments of dividends or other distributions with respect to our ordinary shares or the proceeds from the sale of the shares, except for the obligation of Israeli residents to file reports with the Bank of Israel regarding certain transactions. However, legislation remains in effect, pursuant to which currency controls can be imposed by administrative action at any time.

 

E. Taxation

 

Israeli Tax Considerations

 

The following is a summary of the current tax structure applicable to companies in Israel, with special reference to its effect on us. Note that this tax structure and any resulting benefit may not apply for any income derived by our foreign subsidiaries, which subsidiaries may be taxed according to tax laws applicable to their country of residence. The following also contains a discussion of the material Israeli tax consequences to persons purchasing our ordinary shares. To the extent that the discussion is based on tax legislation, which has not been subject to judicial or administrative interpretation, we cannot assure you that the tax authorities or courts will accept the views expressed in the discussion in question.

 

Prospective purchasers of our ordinary shares should consult their own tax advisors as to the United States, Israeli or other tax consequences of the purchase, ownership and disposition of ordinary shares, including, in particular, the effect of any foreign, state or local taxes.

 

General Corporate Tax Structure

 

The general rate of corporate tax in Israel to which Israeli companies are subject is 23% for the 2023 tax year and for future years. The general rate of capital gains tax in Israel to which Israeli companies are subject is the corporate tax rate. However, the effective tax rate payable by a company which derives income from an “Approved Enterprise”, “Preferred Enterprise” or “Preferred Technological Enterprise” (all as defined below) may be considerably less, as further discussed below.

 

Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investments, 1959

 

General

 

The Law for Encouragement of Capital Investments, 1959, or the Investments Law, as in effect until 2005, provided that upon application to the Investment Center of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the State of Israel, a proposed capital investment in eligible facilities may be designated as an “Approved Enterprise.” Please see discussion below regarding reforms of the Investments Law that came into effect in 2011 and in 2017.

 

Our Approved and Preferred Enterprises

 

During 2011, we decided to implement the new legislation amending the Investments Law, while waiving future benefits provided from the Approved Enterprise program under the Investments Law (see more details hereinafter).

 

Further information with regard to our Approved and Preferred Enterprise programs can be found in Item 3, “Risk Factors” under the caption “We currently benefit from local tax benefits that may be discontinued or reduced” and in Note 8 of our Consolidated Financial Statements under the caption “Taxes on Income.”

 

Reform of the Investments Law - 2011

 

On December 29, 2010, the Israeli parliament approved an amendment to the Investments Law, effective as of January 1, 2011, which constitutes a reform of the incentives regime under such law. This amendment revises the objectives of the Investments Law to focus on achieving enhanced growth in the business sector, improving the Israeli industry’s competitiveness in international markets and creating employment and development opportunities in remote areas of Israel. The amendment allows enterprises meeting certain required criteria to enjoy grants as well as tax benefits. The amendment also introduces certain changes to the map of geographic development areas for purposes of the Investments Law, which will take effect in future years.

 

 

The amendment generally abolishes the previous tax benefit routes that were afforded under the Investments Law, specifically the tax-exemption periods previously allowed, and introduces new tax benefits for industrial enterprises meeting the criteria of the law, which include the following:

 

●

A reduced corporate tax rate for industrial enterprises (provided that more than 25% of their annual income is derived from export), which will apply to the enterprise’s entire preferred income, equal to 9% for development area A and 16% for the rest of Israel. Under an amendment to the Investment Law enacted in December 2016, the reduced tax rate of 9% decreased to 7.5% for 2017 and thereafter.

 

●

The reduced tax rates will no longer be contingent upon making a minimum qualifying investment in productive assets.

 

●

A definition of “preferred income” was introduced into the Investments Law to include certain types of income that are generated by the Israeli production activity of a Preferred Enterprise.

 

●

A reduced dividend withholding tax rate of 15% will apply to dividends paid from preferred income to both Israeli and non-Israeli investors, with an exemption from such withholding tax applying to dividends paid to an Israeli company. Under a later amendment of the Investments Law, the dividend withholding tax rate of 15% was increased to 20% for dividends paid from preferred income that accrued from the tax year 2014 and onwards.

 

The amendment will generally apply to preferred income produced or generated by a Preferred Company (as defined in the Investments Law) commencing from January 1, 2011. The amendment contains various transition provisions which allow, under certain circumstances, to apply the new regime to investment programs previously approved or elected under the Investments Law in its previous form. Although this recent amendment took effect on January 1, 2011, the transitional provisions of its adoption also allow the company to defer its adoption to future years.

 

The 2017 amendment (“Preferred Technological Enterprises”)

 

Amendment 73 to the Investments Law, which came into effect on January 1, 2017, provides a new tax incentive regime. Regulations have been promulgated to implement the “Nexus Principles,” based on OECD guidelines published as part of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project.

 

The new incentive regime applies to “Preferred Technological Enterprises” that meet certain conditions, including all of the following:

 

●

The company’s average R&D expenses in the three years prior to the current tax year must be greater than or equal to 7% of its total revenue or exceed NIS 75 million (approximately $20 million) per year; and

 

●

The company must satisfy one of the following conditions:

 

●

at least 20% of the workforce (or at least 200 employees) are employed in R&D;

 

●

a venture capital investment in an amount approximately equivalent to at least NIS 8 million was previously made in the company, and the company has not changed its business following such investment; or

 

●

growth in sales or workforce by an average of 25% over the three years preceding the applicable tax year, and the company’s total revenue was at least NIS 10 million or at least 50 employees are employed by the company over the three years preceding the applicate tax year.

 

A Preferred Technological Enterprises will be subject to a corporate tax rate of 12% unless it is located in a specified development zone, in which case the rate will be 7.5%, all with respect to the portion of income derived from eligible intellectual property developed in Israel. The withholding tax on dividends from such enterprises will be 4% for dividends paid to a foreign parent company holding at least 90% of the shares of the distributing company. For other dividend distributions, the withholding tax rate will be 20% (or a lower rate provided under a tax treaty, if applicable).

  

On February 18, 2018, the Israel Tax Authority issued a tax ruling granting us “Preferred Technological Enterprise” status, subject to the conditions and terms of the tax ruling. The grant of the status means that starting January 1, 2017, we are subject to a reduced Israeli corporate tax rate of 7.5% on any future taxable “technological income”. The tax ruling was in force for five years through the 2021 tax year. On January 16, 2022, the tax ruling was extended by the Israel Tax Authority for an additional period of five years through the 2026 tax year.

 

 

Dividends Taxation

 

When dividends are distributed from the Preferred Enterprise, they are generally considered to be attributable to the entire enterprise and their effective tax rate is a result of a weighted combination of the applicable tax rates. Further information with regard to taxation of dividends can be found in Note 7 of our Consolidated Financial Statements.

 

We paid dividends to our shareholders in the amount of $5.2 million in 2021, $5.2 million in 2022, and $4.8 million in 2023. In March 2024, we declared a dividend of approximately $4.8 million and withholding tax applied at a rate of 20%.

 

Law for the Encouragement of Industry (Taxes), 1969

 

Under the Law for the Encouragement of Industry (Taxes), 1969, or the Industry Encouragement Law, a company qualifies as an “Industrial Company” if it is resident in Israel and at least 90% of its income in a given tax year, determined in NIS, exclusive of income from certain government loans, is derived from Industrial Enterprises owned by that company. An “Industrial Enterprise” is defined as an enterprise whose major activity in a particular tax year is industrial production activity.

 

Industrial Companies qualify (based on tax regulations) for accelerated depreciation rates for machinery, equipment and buildings used by an Industrial Enterprise. An Industrial Company owning an Approved Enterprise, as described above, may choose between the above depreciation rates and the depreciation rates available to Approved Enterprises.

 

Pursuant to the Industry Encouragement Law, an Industrial Company is also entitled to amortize the purchase price of know-how and patents over a period of eight years beginning with the year in which such rights were first used.

 

In addition, an Industrial Company is entitled to deduct over a three-year period expenses involved with the issuance and listing of shares on a stock exchange and has the right, under certain conditions, to elect to file a consolidated tax return with related Israeli Industrial Companies that satisfy conditions set forth in the law.

 

Eligibility for the benefits under the law is not subject to receipt of prior approval from any governmental authority. We believe that we currently qualify as an Industrial Company within the definition of the Industry Encouragement Law. However, the definition may be amended from time to time and the Israeli tax authorities, which reassess our qualifications annually, may determine that we no longer qualify as an Industrial Company. As a result of either of the foregoing, the benefits described above might not be available in the future.

 

Tax benefits and grants for research and development

 

Israeli tax law allows, under certain conditions, a tax deduction for expenditures related to scientific research and development projects, including capital expenditures, in the year in which they are incurred. Expenditures are deemed related to scientific research and development projects if:

 

●

the expenditures are approved by the relevant Israeli government ministry, which depends on the field of research;

 

●

the research and development must be for the promotion of the company; and

 

●

the research and development is carried out by or on behalf of the company seeking such tax deduction.

 

The amount of such deductible expenses is reduced by the sum of any funds received through government grants for the finance of such scientific research and development projects. Under these research and development deduction rules, no deduction is allowed for any expense invested in an asset depreciable under the general depreciation rules of the Tax Ordinance. Expenditures that do not qualify for this special deduction are deductible in equal amounts over three years. 

 

 

Israeli Transfer Pricing Regulations

 

On November 29, 2006, Income Tax Regulations (Determination of Market Terms), 2006, promulgated under Section 85A of the Tax Ordinance, or the Transfer Pricing Regulations, came into force. Section 85A of the Tax Ordinance and the Transfer Pricing Regulations generally require that all cross-border transactions carried out between related parties will be conducted on an arm’s length principle basis and will be taxed accordingly.

 

Capital Gains Tax on the Sale of our Ordinary Shares

 

General

 

Israeli law generally imposes a capital gains tax on the sale of any capital assets by residents of Israel, as defined for Israeli tax purposes, and on the sale of assets located in Israel, including shares in Israeli companies, by non-residents of Israel, unless a specific exemption is available or unless a tax treaty between Israel and the shareholder’s country of residence provides otherwise. The law distinguishes between real gain and inflationary surplus. The inflationary surplus is equal to the increase in the purchase price of the relevant asset attributable to the increase in the Israeli consumer price index or, in certain circumstances, a foreign currency exchange rate, between the date of purchase and the date of sale. The real gain is the excess of the total capital gain over the inflationary surplus.

 

Israeli Residents

 

Generally, the tax rate applicable to capital gains derived from the sale of shares, whether listed on a stock market or not, is 25% for Israeli individuals, unless such shareholder claims a deduction for financing expenses in connection with such shares, in which case the gain will generally be taxed at a rate of 30%. Additionally, if such shareholder is considered a “significant shareholder” at any time during the 12-month period preceding such sale, i.e., such shareholder holds directly or indirectly, including with others, at least 10% of any “means of control” in the company, the tax rate will be 30%. However, the foregoing tax rates will not apply to individuals: (i) who are dealers in securities; or (ii) who acquired their shares prior to an initial public offering (that may be subject to a different tax arrangement). Israeli companies are subject to the corporate tax rate on capital gains derived from the sale of listed shares.

 

Non-Residents of Israel

 

Non-Israeli residents are exempt from Israeli capital gains tax on any gains derived from the sale of shares publicly traded on a recognized stock market outside of Israel, provided that such capital gains are not derived from a permanent establishment in Israel and that such shareholders did not acquire their shares prior to the issuer’s initial public offering. However, non-Israeli corporations will not be entitled to such exemption if Israeli residents (i) have a controlling interest of more than 25% in such non-Israeli corporation, or (ii) are the beneficiaries of or are entitled to 25% or more of the revenues or profits of such non-Israeli corporation, whether directly or indirectly.

 

In some instances where our shareholders may be liable to Israeli tax on the sale of their ordinary shares, the payment of the consideration may be subject to the withholding of Israeli tax at the source.

 

Pursuant to the Convention between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Israel with Respect to Taxes on Income, as amended, or the U.S.- Israel Tax Treaty, the sale, exchange or disposition of our ordinary shares by a person who qualifies as a resident of the United States and is entitled to claim the benefits afforded to a resident, or a Treaty U.S. Resident, will not be subject to Israeli capital gains tax unless (i) the Treaty U.S. Resident held, directly or indirectly, shares representing 10% or more of our voting power during any part of the 12-month period preceding the sale, exchange or disposition, (ii) the capital gains from such sale can be allocated to a permanent establishment in Israel or (iii) such Treaty U.S. Resident is an individual and was present in Israel for 183 days or more during the relevant taxable year. A sale, exchange or disposition of our ordinary shares by a Treaty U.S. Resident who does not meet the above conditions will be subject to Israeli capital gains tax, to the extent applicable. However, under the U.S.-Israel Tax Treaty, this Treaty U.S. Resident would be permitted to claim a credit for such taxes against U.S. federal income tax imposed with respect to such sale, exchange or disposition, subject to the limitations in U.S. laws applicable to foreign tax credits. The U.S.-Israel Tax Treaty does not relate to state or local taxes.

 

 

Regardless of whether non-Israeli shareholders may be liable for Israeli capital gains tax on the sale of our ordinary shares, the payment of the consideration for such sale may be subject to withholding of Israeli tax at source and holders of our ordinary shares may be required to demonstrate that they are exempt from tax on their capital gains in order to avoid withholding at source at the time of sale. Specifically, the Israel Tax Authority may require shareholders who are not liable for Israeli capital gains tax on such a sale to sign a declaration on a forms specified by the Israel Tax Authority, provide documents (including, for example, a certificate of residency) or obtain a specific exemption from the Israel Tax Authority to confirm their status as non-Israeli residents. In the absence of such declarations or exemptions, the Israel Tax Authority may require the purchaser of the shares to withhold tax at source.

 

A non-resident of Israel who receives dividend income or that realizes capital gains derived from the sale of our ordinary shares, from which tax was withheld at the source, in practice, is exempt from the duty to file tax returns in Israel with respect to such income, provided that (i) such income was not derived from a business conducted in Israel by the taxpayer; (ii) the taxpayer has no other taxable sources of income in Israel; and (iii) the taxpayer is not liable to surtax (as described below under “Surtax”).

 

Dividend Taxation

 

Income Taxes on Dividends Distributed by the Company to Israeli Residents

 

The distribution of dividend income to Israeli residents will generally be subject to income tax at a rate of 25% for individuals and will be exempt from income tax for corporations. The portion of dividends paid out of profits earned under a Preferred Enterprise (accrued from the 2014 tax year and onwards) or a Preferred Technological Enterprise tax status of the Company to individuals is subject to withholding tax at the rate of 20%.

 

In addition, if an Individual Israeli shareholder is considered a “significant shareholder” at any time during the 12-month period preceding such distribution, i.e., such shareholder holds directly or indirectly, including with others, at least 10% of any means of control in the company, the tax rate on the dividend (not sourced from eligible Preferred Enterprise or Preferred Technological Enterprise income) will be 30%.

 

Income Taxes on Dividends Distributed by the Company to Non-Israeli Residents

 

Subject to the provisions of applicable tax treaties, dividend distributions from regular profits (non-Preferred Enterprise) by the Company to a non-resident shareholder are generally subject to withholding tax of 25%, unless relief is provided in an applicable tax treaty between Israel and the shareholder’s country of residence. However, if the non-resident shareholder is considered a “significant shareholder” at any time during the 12-month period preceding such distribution, the tax rate on the dividend (not sourced from eligible Preferred Enterprise or Preferred Technological Enterprise income) will be 30%. Such dividends are generally subject to Israeli withholding tax at a rate of 25% if the shares are registered with a nominee company (whether the recipient is a significant shareholder or not). The portion of dividends paid out of profits earned under a Preferred Enterprise (accrued from the 2014 tax year and onwards) or a Preferred Technological Enterprise tax status of the Company is subject to withholding tax at the rate of 20%.

 

Generally, under the U.S-Israel Tax Treaty the maximum rate of withholding tax on dividends paid to a shareholder who is a resident of the United States (as defined in the U.S. – Israel Tax Treaty) will be 25%. However, when a U.S. tax resident corporation is the recipient of the dividend, the withholding tax rate on a dividend out of regular (non-Approved/Preferred Enterprise/Preferred Technological Enterprise) profits may be reduced to 12.5% under the U.S-Israel Tax Treaty, where the following conditions are met:

 

(a)

the recipient corporation owns at least 10% of the outstanding voting rights of the Company for all of the period preceding the dividend during the Company’s current and prior taxable year; and

 

(b)

generally not more than 25% of the gross income of the paying corporation for its prior tax year consists of certain interest and dividend income.

 

 

Otherwise, the usual rates apply. Dividends paid to such U.S. corporation from income derived during any period for which the Israeli company is entitled to the reduced tax rate applicable to an Approved Enterprise, Preferred Enterprise or Preferred Technological Enterprise will be subject to a 15% tax rate, provided that the conditions in clauses (a) and (b) above are met. If the dividend is attributable partly to income derived from an Approved Enterprise, Preferred Enterprise or Preferred Technological Enterprise, and partly to other sources of income, the withholding rate will be a blended rate reflecting the relative portions of the two types of income. The aforementioned rates under the U.S-Israel Tax Treaty will not apply if the dividend income was derived through or attributed to a permanent establishment of the U.S. tax resident in Israel. Application for this reduced tax rate requires appropriate documentation presented to, and specific instruction received from, the Israel Tax Authority. We cannot assure you that we will designate the profits that we may distribute in a way that will reduce shareholders’ tax liability.

 

Surtax

 

Shareholders that are individuals who have taxable income that exceeds a certain threshold in a tax year (linked to the CPI, which threshold is NIS 698,280 and NIS 721,560 in the 2023 and 2024 tax years, respectively), will be subject to an additional tax at the rate of 3% on their taxable income for such tax year which is in excess of such threshold. For this purpose, taxable income will include taxable capital gains from the sale of our shares and taxable income from dividend distributions.

 

U.S. Federal Income Taxation

 

Subject to the limitations described in the next paragraph, the following discussion summarizes the material U.S. federal income tax consequences to a “U.S. Holder” arising from the purchase, ownership and sale of the Ordinary Shares. For this purpose, a “U.S. Holder” is a holder of Ordinary Shares that is: (1) an individual citizen or resident of the United States, including an alien individual who is a lawful permanent resident of the United States or meets the substantial presence residency test under U.S. federal income tax laws; (2) a corporation (or other entity treated as a corporation for U.S. federal income tax purposes) or a partnership (other than a partnership that is not treated as a U.S. person under any applicable U.S. Treasury Regulations) created or organized in or under the laws of the United States or the District of Columbia or any political subdivision thereof; (3) an estate, the income of which is subject to U.S. federal income tax regardless of source; (4) a trust if a court within the United States is able to exercise primary supervision over the administration of the trust and one or more U.S. persons have authority to control all substantial decisions of the trust; (5) a trust that has a valid election in effect to be treated as a U.S. person to the extent provided in U.S. Treasury regulations; or (6) any person otherwise subject to U.S. federal income tax on a net income basis in respect of the Ordinary Shares, if such status as a U.S. Holder is not overridden pursuant to the provisions of an applicable tax treaty.

 

This summary is for general information purposes only and does not purport to be a comprehensive description of all of the U.S. federal income tax considerations that may be relevant to a decision to purchase or hold our Ordinary Shares. This summary generally considers only U.S. Holders that will own our Ordinary Shares as capital assets. Except to the limited extent discussed below, this summary does not consider the U.S. federal tax consequences to a person that is not a U.S. Holder, nor does it describe the rules applicable to determine a taxpayer’s status as a U.S. Holder. This summary is based on the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, final, temporary and proposed U.S. Treasury Regulations promulgated thereunder, administrative and judicial interpretations thereof, and the U.S./Israel Income Tax Treaty, all as in effect as of the date hereof and all of which are subject to change, possibly on a retroactive basis, and all of which are open to differing interpretations. The Company will not seek a ruling from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, or the IRS, with regard to the U.S. federal income tax treatment of an investment in our Ordinary Shares by U.S. Holders and, therefore, can provide no assurances that the IRS will agree with the conclusions set forth below.

 

This discussion does not address all of the aspects of U.S. federal income taxation that may be relevant to a particular shareholder based on such shareholder’s particular circumstances and in particular does not discuss any estate, gift, generation-skipping, transfer, state, local or foreign tax considerations. In addition, this discussion does not address the U.S. federal income tax treatment of a U.S. Holder who is: (1) a bank, life insurance company, regulated investment company, or other financial institution or “financial services entity”; (2) a broker or dealer in securities or foreign currency; (3) a person who acquired our Ordinary Shares in connection with employment or other performance of services; (4) a U.S. Holder that is subject to the U.S. alternative minimum tax; (5) a U.S. Holder that holds our Ordinary Shares as a hedge or as part of a hedging, straddle, conversion or constructive sale transaction or other risk-reduction transaction for U.S. federal income tax purposes; (6) a tax-exempt entity; (7) real estate investment trusts; (8) a U.S. Holder that expatriates out of the United States or a former long-term resident of the United States; or (9) a person having a functional currency other than the dollar. This discussion does not address the U.S. federal income tax treatment of a U.S. Holder that owns, directly or constructively, at any time, Ordinary Shares representing 10% or more of our voting power. Additionally, the U.S. federal income tax treatment of persons who hold Ordinary Shares through a partnership or other pass-through entity are not considered.

 

You are encouraged to consult your own tax advisor with respect to the specific U.S. federal and state income tax consequences to you of purchasing, holding or disposing of our Ordinary Shares, including the effects of applicable state, local, foreign or other tax laws and possible changes in the tax laws.

 

 

Distributions on Ordinary Shares

 

Subject to the discussion under the heading “Passive Foreign Investment Companies” below, a U.S. Holder will be required to include in gross income as ordinary income the amount of any distribution paid on Ordinary Shares (including the amount of any Israeli tax withheld on the date of the distribution), to the extent that such distribution does not exceed our current and accumulated earnings and profits, as determined for U.S. federal income tax purposes. The amount of a distribution which exceeds our earnings and profits will be treated first as a non-taxable return of capital, reducing the U.S. Holder’s tax basis for the Ordinary Shares to the extent thereof, and then capital gain. Corporate holders generally will not be allowed a deduction for dividends received. For noncorporate U.S. Holders, to the extent that their total adjusted income does not exceed applicable thresholds, the maximum federal income tax rate for “qualified dividend income” and long-term capital gains is generally 15%. For those noncorporate U.S. Holders whose total adjusted income exceeds such income thresholds, the maximum federal income tax rate for “qualified dividend income” and long-term capital gains is generally 20%. For this purpose, “qualified dividend income” means, among other things, dividends received from a “qualified foreign corporation.” A “qualified foreign corporation” is a corporation that is entitled to the benefits of a comprehensive tax treaty with the United States which includes an exchange of information program. The IRS has stated that the Israel/U.S. Tax Treaty satisfies this requirement and we believe we are eligible for the benefits of that treaty.

 

In addition, our dividends will be qualified dividend income if our Ordinary Shares are readily tradable on Nasdaq or another established securities market in the United States. Dividends will not qualify for the preferential rate if we are treated, in the year the dividend is paid or in the prior year, as a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC. A U.S. Holder will not be entitled to the preferential rate: (1) if the U.S. Holder has not held our Ordinary Shares or ADRs for at least 61 days of the 121-day period beginning on the date which is 60 days before the ex-dividend date, or (2) to the extent the U.S. Holder is under an obligation to make related payments on substantially similar property. Any days during which the U.S. Holder has diminished its risk of loss on our Ordinary Shares are not counted towards meeting the 61-day holding period. Finally, U.S. Holders who elect to treat the dividend income as “investment income” pursuant to Code section 163(d)(4) will not be eligible for the preferential rate of taxation.

 

The amount of a distribution with respect to our Ordinary Shares will be measured by the amount of the fair market value of any property distributed, and for U.S. federal income tax purposes, the amount of any Israeli taxes withheld therefrom. (See discussion above under “Israeli Tax Considerations - Dividend Taxation.”) Cash distributions paid by us in NIS will be included in the income of U.S. Holders at a dollar amount based upon the spot rate of exchange in effect on the date the dividend is includible in the income of the U.S. Holder, and U.S. Holders will have a tax basis in such NIS for U.S. federal income tax purposes equal to such dollar value. If the U.S. Holder subsequently converts the NIS, any subsequent gain or loss in respect of such NIS arising from exchange rate fluctuations will be U.S. source ordinary exchange gain or loss.

 

Distributions paid by us will generally be foreign source income for U.S. foreign tax credit purposes. Subject to the limitations set forth in the Code, U.S. Holders may elect to claim a foreign tax credit against their U.S. income tax liability for Israeli income tax withheld from distributions received in respect of the Ordinary Shares. In general, these rules limit the amount allowable as a foreign tax credit in any year to the amount of regular U.S. tax for the year attributable to foreign source taxable income. This limitation on the use of foreign tax credits generally will not apply to an electing individual U.S. Holder whose creditable foreign taxes during the year do not exceed $300, or $600 for joint filers, if such individual’s gross income for the taxable year from non-U.S. sources consists solely of certain passive income. A U.S. Holder will be denied a foreign tax credit with respect to Israeli income tax withheld from dividends received with respect to the Ordinary Shares if such U.S. Holder has not held the Ordinary Shares for at least 16 days out of the 31-day period beginning on the date that is 15 days before the ex-dividend date or to the extent that such U.S. Holder is under an obligation to make certain related payments with respect to substantially similar or related property. Any day during which a U.S. Holder has substantially diminished his or her risk of loss with respect to the Ordinary Shares will not count toward meeting the 16-day holding period. A U.S. Holder will also be denied a foreign tax credit if the U.S. Holder holds the Ordinary Shares in an arrangement in which the U.S. Holder’s reasonably expected economic profit is insubstantial compared to the foreign taxes expected to be paid or accrued. The rules relating to the determination of the U.S. foreign tax credit are complex, and U.S. Holders should consult with their own tax advisors to determine whether, and to what extent, they are entitled to such credit. U.S. Holders that do not elect to claim a foreign tax credit may instead claim a deduction for Israeli income taxes withheld, provided such U.S. Holders itemize their deductions.

 

 

Disposition of Shares

 

Except as provided under the PFIC rules described below, upon the sale, exchange or other disposition of our Ordinary Shares, a U.S. Holder will recognize capital gain or loss in an amount equal to the difference between such U.S. Holder’s tax basis in the sold Ordinary Shares and the amount realized on the disposition of such Ordinary Shares (or its dollar equivalent determined by reference to the spot rate of exchange on the date of disposition, if the amount realized is denominated in a foreign currency). The gain or loss realized on the sale or exchange or other disposition of Ordinary Shares will be long-term capital gain or loss if the U.S. Holder has a holding period of more than one year at the time of the disposition.

 

In general, gain realized by a U.S. Holder on a sale, exchange or other disposition of Ordinary Shares will generally be treated as U.S. source income for U.S. foreign tax credit purposes. A loss realized by a U.S. Holder on the sale, exchange or other disposition of Ordinary Shares is generally allocated to U.S. source income. However, U.S. Treasury Regulations require such loss to be allocated to foreign source income to the extent specified dividends were received by the taxpayer within the 24-month period preceding the date on which the taxpayer recognized the loss. The deductibility of a loss realized on the sale, exchange or other disposition of Ordinary Shares is subject to limitations.

 

Tax on Net Investment Income

 

U.S. Holders who are individuals, estates or trusts will generally be required to pay 3.8% tax on their net investment income (including dividends on and gains from the sale or other disposition of our Ordinary Shares), or in the case of estates and trusts on their net investment income that is not distributed. In each case, the 3.8% Medicare tax applies only to the extent the U.S. Holder’s total adjusted income exceeds applicable thresholds.

 

Passive Foreign Investment Companies

 

Special U.S. federal income tax laws apply to a U.S. Holder who owns shares of a corporation that was (at any time during the U.S. Holder’s holding period) a PFIC. We would be treated as a PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes for any tax year if, in such tax year, either:

 

●

75% or more of our gross income (including our pro rata share of gross income for any company, U.S. or foreign, in which we are considered to own 25% or more of the shares by value), in a taxable year is passive, or the Income Test; or

 

●

At least 50% of our assets, averaged over the year and generally determined based upon value (including our pro rata share of the assets of any company in which we are considered to own 25% or more of the shares by value), in a taxable year are held for the production of, or produce, passive income, or the Asset Test.

 

For this purpose, passive income generally consists of dividends, interest, rents, royalties, annuities and income from certain commodities transactions and from notional principal contracts. Cash is treated as generating passive income.

 

If we are or become a PFIC, each U.S. Holder who has not elected to treat us as a qualified electing fund by making a “QEF election”, or who has not elected to mark the shares to market (as discussed below), would, upon receipt of certain distributions by us and upon disposition of our Ordinary Shares at a gain, be liable to pay U.S. federal income tax at the then prevailing highest tax rates on ordinary income plus interest on such tax, as if the distribution or gain had been recognized ratably over the taxpayer’s holding period for the Ordinary Shares. In addition, when shares of a PFIC are acquired by reason of death from a decedent that was a U.S. Holder, the tax basis of such shares would not receive a step-up to fair market value as of the date of the decedent’s death, but instead would be equal to the decedent’s basis if lower, unless all gain were recognized by the decedent. Indirect investments in a PFIC may also be subject to special U.S. federal income tax rules.

 

The PFIC rules would not apply to a U.S. Holder who makes a QEF election for all taxable years that such U.S. Holder has held the Ordinary Shares while we are a PFIC, provided that we comply with specified reporting requirements. Instead, each U.S. Holder who has made such a QEF election is required for each taxable year that we are a PFIC to include in income such U.S. Holder’s pro rata share of our ordinary earnings as ordinary income and such U.S. Holder’s pro rata share of our net capital gains as long-term capital gain, regardless of whether we make any distributions of such earnings or gain. In general, a QEF election is effective only if we make available certain required information. The QEF election is made on a shareholder-by-shareholder basis and generally may be revoked only with the consent of the IRS. U.S. Holders should consult with their own tax advisors regarding eligibility, manner and advisability of making a QEF election if we are treated as a PFIC.

 

 

A U.S. Holder of PFIC shares which are traded on qualifying public markets, including the Nasdaq, can elect to mark the shares to market annually, recognizing as ordinary income or loss each year an amount equal to the difference as of the close of the taxable year between the fair market value of the PFIC shares and the U.S. Holder’s adjusted tax basis in the PFIC shares. Losses are allowed only to the extent of net mark-to-market gain previously included income by the U.S. Holder under the election for prior taxable years.

 

In light of the complexity of PFIC rules, we cannot assure you that we have not been or are not a PFIC or will avoid becoming a PFIC in the future. U.S. Holders who hold Ordinary Shares during a period when we are a PFIC will be subject to the foregoing rules, even if we cease to be a PFIC, subject to specified exceptions for U.S. Holders who made a QEF or mark-to-market election. U.S. Holders are strongly urged to consult their tax advisors about the PFIC rules, including tax return filing requirements and the eligibility, manner, and consequences to them of making a QEF or mark-to-market election with respect to our Ordinary Shares in the event we that qualify as a PFIC.

 

Information Reporting and Withholding

 

A U.S. Holder may be subject to backup withholding (at a rate of 24%) with respect to cash dividends and proceeds from a disposition of Ordinary Shares. In general, back-up withholding will apply only if a U.S. Holder fails to comply with specified identification procedures. Backup withholding will not apply with respect to payments made to designated exempt recipients, such as corporations and tax-exempt organizations. Backup withholding is not an additional tax and may be claimed as a credit against the U.S. federal income tax liability of a U.S. Holder, provided that the required information is timely furnished to the IRS.

 

Under the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act of 2010, or the HIRE Act, some payments made to “foreign financial institutions” in respect of accounts of U.S. stockholders at such financial institutions may be subject to withholding at a rate of 30%. U.S. Treasury Regulations provide that such withholding will only apply to distributions paid on or after January 1, 2014, and to other “withholdable payments” (including payments of gross proceeds from a sale or other disposition of our Ordinary Shares) made on or after January 1, 2017. U.S. Holders should consult their tax advisors regarding the effect, if any, of the HIRE Act on their ownership and disposition of our Ordinary Shares. See “Non-U.S. Holders of Ordinary Shares.”

 

Non-U.S. Holders of Ordinary Shares

 

Except as provided below, an individual, corporation, estate or trust that is not a U.S. Holder generally will not be subject to U.S. federal income or withholding tax on the payment of dividends on, and the proceeds from the disposition of, our Ordinary Shares.

 

A non-U.S. Holder may be subject to U.S. federal income or withholding tax on a dividend paid on our Ordinary Shares or the proceeds from the disposition of our Ordinary Shares if: (1) such item is effectively connected with the conduct by the non-U.S. Holder of a trade or business in the United States or, in the case of a non-U.S. Holder that is a resident of a country which has an income tax treaty with the United States, such item is attributable to a permanent establishment or, in the case of gain realized by an individual non-U.S. Holder, a fixed place of business in the United States; (2) in the case of a disposition of our Ordinary Shares, the individual non-U.S. Holder is present in the United States for 183 days or more in the taxable year of the sale and other specified conditions are met; (3) the non-U.S. Holder is subject to U.S. federal income tax pursuant to the provisions of the U.S. tax law applicable to U.S. expatriates.

 

In general, non-U.S. Holders will not be subject to backup withholding with respect to the payment of dividends on our Ordinary Shares if payment is made through a paying agent, or office of a foreign broker outside the United States. However, if payment is made in the United States or by a U.S. related person, non-U.S. Holders may be subject to backup withholding, unless the non-U.S. Holder provides on an applicable Form W-8 (or a substantially similar form) a taxpayer identification number, certifies to its foreign status, or otherwise establishes an exemption. A U.S. related person for these purposes is a person with one or more current relationships with the United States.

 

The amount of any backup withholding from a payment to a non-U.S. Holder will be allowed as a credit against such holder’s U.S. federal income tax liability and may entitle such holder to a refund, provided that the required information is timely furnished to the IRS.

 

 

The HIRE Act may impose withholding taxes on some types of payments made to “foreign financial institutions” and some other non-U.S. entities. Under the HIRE Act, the failure to comply with additional certification, information reporting and other specified requirements could result in withholding tax being imposed on payments of dividends and sales proceeds to U.S. Holders that own Ordinary Shares through foreign accounts or foreign intermediaries and specified non-U.S. Holders. The HIRE Act imposes a 30% withholding tax on dividends on, and gross proceeds from the sale or other disposition of, Ordinary Shares paid from the United States to a foreign financial institution or to a foreign nonfinancial entity, unless (1) the foreign financial institution undertakes specified diligence and reporting obligations or (2) the foreign nonfinancial entity either certifies it does not have any substantial U.S. owners or furnishes identifying information regarding each substantial U.S. owner. In addition, if the payee is a foreign financial institution, it generally must enter into an agreement with the U.S. Treasury that requires, among other things, that it undertake to identify accounts held by specified U.S. persons or U.S.-owned foreign entities, annually report certain information about such accounts, and withhold 30% on payments to other specified account holders. U.S. Treasury Regulations provide that such withholding will only apply to distributions paid on or after January 1, 2014, and to other “withholdable payments” (including payments of gross proceeds from a sale or other disposition of our Ordinary Shares) made on or after January 1, 2017. You should consult your tax advisor regarding the HIRE Act.

 

F. Dividends and paying agents

 

Not applicable.

 

G. Statement by Experts

 

Not applicable.

 

H. Documents on Display

 

We are subject to certain of the information reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. As a foreign private issuer, we are exempt from the rules and regulations under the Exchange Act prescribing the content of proxy statements, and our officers, directors and principal shareholders are exempt from the reporting and “short-swing” profit recovery provisions contained in Section 16 of the Exchange Act, with respect to their purchase and sale of our shares. In addition, we are not required to file reports and financial statements with the SEC as frequently or as promptly as U.S. companies whose securities are registered under the Exchange Act. However, we are required to file with the SEC, within four months after the end of each fiscal year, an annual report on Form 20-F containing financial statements audited by an independent accounting firm. We publish unaudited interim financial information after the end of each quarter. We furnish this quarterly financial information to the SEC under cover of a Form 6-K.

 

We are subject to the informational requirements of the Exchange Act, applicable to foreign private issuers and fulfill the obligations with respect to such requirements by filing reports with the SEC. You may read and copy any document we file, including any exhibits, with the SEC without charge at the SEC’s public reference room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549.Copies of such material may be obtained by mail from the Public Reference Branch of the SEC at such address, at prescribed rates. Please call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for further information on the public reference room. Certain of our SEC filings are also available to the public at the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov, and on our website at http://www.mindcti.com.

 

You may request a copy of our SEC filings, at no cost, by e-mailing to investor@mindcti.com and upon said request copies will be sent by e-mail. A copy of each report submitted in accordance with applicable U.S. law is available for review at our principal executive offices.

 

I. Subsidiary Information

 

Not applicable.

 

J. Annual Report to Security Holders

 

Not applicable.

 

 

Item 11. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

 

Market risk represents the risk of changes in the value of our financial instruments as a result of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates.

 

The following table sets forth our consolidated balance sheet exposure with respect to change in foreign currency exchange rates as of December 31, 2023.

 

Currency		Current Monetary Assets (Liabilities)-Net
		(dollars in thousands)
NIS		$	(4	)
EURO			1,411
Romanian RON			83
Other non-dollar currencies			(9	)
		$	1,481

 

Our annual expenses paid in NIS are approximately $2.0 million. Accordingly, we estimate that a hypothetical increase of the value of the NIS against the dollar by 1% would result in an increase in our operating expenses by approximately $20 thousand for the year ended December 31, 2023.

 

We are exposed to changes in prices of various securities in which we invest. As of December 31, 2023, we held short term investments (mainly highly rated corporate bonds) of $0.2 million, which are held for trading and presented in the balance sheet as marketable securities. These debt securities are exposed to potential loss in market value due to a decline in debt securities prices. The potential loss in fair value resulting from a 10% adverse change in debt securities prices would be approximately $0.02 million.

 

As of December 31, 2023, we did not hold any derivative financial instruments for either trading or non-trading purposes.

 

Item 12. Description of Securities Other Than Equity Securities

 

None.

 

 

PART II

 

Item 13. Defaults, Dividend Arrearages and Delinquencies

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 14. Material Modifications to the Rights of Security Holders and Use of Proceeds

 

None.

 

Item 15. Controls and Procedures

 

Disclosure Controls and Procedures

 

We performed an evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rule 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act) as of December 31, 2023. The evaluation was performed with the participation of our senior management and under the supervision and with the participation of our chief executive officer and chief financial officer. Based on this evaluation, our chief executive officer and chief financial officer have concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of December 31, 2023.

 

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

 

Our management, including our chief executive officer and chief financial officer, is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over our financial reporting, as such term is defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act. Our internal control system was designed to provide reasonable assurance to our management and our board of directors regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation and fair presentation of published financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. All internal control systems, no matter how well designed, have inherent limitations. Therefore, even those systems determined to be effective can provide only reasonable assurances with respect to financial statement preparation and presentation. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may decline.

 

Our management (with the participation of our chief executive officer and chief financial officer) conducted an evaluation, pursuant to Rule 13a-15(c) under the Exchange Act, of the effectiveness, as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report, of our internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria set forth in the Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2103 framework) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on the results of this evaluation, management assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as at December 31, 2023 and concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2023. 

 

Attestation Report of the Registered Public Accounting Firm

 

Not applicable.

 

Changes in Financial Control over Financial Reporting

 

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during 2023 that have materially affected, or that are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

 

Item 16. [Reserved]

 

Item 16A. Audit Committee Financial Expert

 

Our board of directors has designated Mr. Joseph Tenne as our “audit committee financial expert”, as defined by the SEC rules. Mr. Tenne is an “independent director”, as defined by the Nasdaq listing rules.

 

 

Item 16B. Code of Ethics

 

We have adopted a Code of Ethics that applies to all of our directors, officers and employees, including our principal executive and financial officers. The Code of Ethics is publicly available on our website at www.mindcti.com. If we make any substantive amendments to the Code of Ethics or grant any waiver from a provision of this code to our chief executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer or controller, we will either disclose the nature of such amendment or waiver on our website or in our annual report on Form 20-F.

 

Item 16C. Principal Accountant Fees and Services

 

At the annual meeting held on May 9, 2023, our shareholders re-appointed Fahn Kanne & Co. Grant Thornton Israel, certified public accountants in Israel, as our independent auditor until the close of the following year’s annual general meeting.

 

Fahn Kanne & Co. Grant Thornton Israel earned fees from us for professional services in fiscal years 2023 and 2022, respectively:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2023				2022
Audit Fees		$	101,654			$	119,129
Tax Fees			-				-
Total		$	101,654			$	119,129

 

Our audit committee’s policy is to approve each audit and non-audit service to be performed by our independent accountant before the accountant is engaged.

 

Item 16D. Exemptions from the Listing Standards for Audit Committees

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 16E. Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers

 

None.

 

Item 16F. Change in Registrant’s Certifying Accountant

 

A change in our independent registered public accounting firm in June 2022 was previously disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2022.

 

Item 16G. Corporate Governance

 

We follow the Israeli Companies Law, the relevant provisions of which are summarized in this annual report, rather than comply with the Nasdaq requirement relating to the quorum for shareholder meetings, as described in Item 10.B “Additional Information – Memorandum and Articles of Association – Voting, Shareholders’ Meetings and Resolutions”, rather than comply with Nasdaq’s shareholder approval requirements with respect to equity compensation plans, as described in Item 6.C “Directors, Senior Management and Employees – Board Practices–Office Holder Compensation”, and rather than comply with the Nasdaq requirements relating to compensation committees (other than the due composition thereof), our audit committee (in its capacity as our compensation committee) fulfills the duties of a compensation committee in accordance with the Companies Law, as described in Item 6.A “Directors, Senior Management and Employees - Board Practices.” In addition, we are exempt from Nasdaq’s requirement to send an annual report to shareholders prior to our annual general meetings. Instead, we file annual reports on Form 20-F electronically with the SEC and post a copy on our website.

 

 

Item 16H. Mine Safety Disclosure

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 16I. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 16J. Insider Trading Policies

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 16K. Cybersecurity

 

Risk management and strategy

 

We prioritize the management of cybersecurity risk and the protection of information across our enterprise by embedding data protection and cybersecurity risk management in our operations. Our processes for assessing, identifying, and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats have been integrated into our overall risk management system and processes.

 

As a foundation of this approach, we have implemented a layered governance structure to help assess, identify and manage cybersecurity risks. Our privacy and cybersecurity policies encompass incident response procedures, information security and vendor management. In order to help develop these policies and procedures, we monitor the privacy and cybersecurity laws, regulations and guidance applicable to us in the regions where we do business (including Germany and Israel), as well as proposed privacy and cybersecurity laws, regulations, guidance and emerging risks.

 

We annually undergo an external evaluation by cybersecurity consulting firms, including the performance of penetration testing, vulnerability and risk assessment and certification of ISO 27001 framework. With respect to third party service providers, we obligate our vendors to adhere to privacy and cybersecurity measures, and we perform risk assessments of vendors, including their ability to protect data from unauthorized access.

 

As described in Item 3.D “Risk Factors,” our products and services, including our cloud offerings, rely on the secure processing, storage and transmission of confidential and other information of our customers, as well as our own data. Computer viruses, hackers, employee or vendor misconduct, and other external hazards could expose our information systems and those of our vendors to security breaches, cybersecurity incidents or other disruptions, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business in the form of system disruptions and shutdowns or denials of service or compromise data, including personal or confidential information, of us, our partners or our customers. We have not experienced cybersecurity incidents to date.

 

The sophistication of cybersecurity threats, including through the use of artificial intelligence, continues to increase, and the controls and preventative actions we take to reduce the risk of cybersecurity incidents and protect our systems, including the regular testing of our cybersecurity incident response plan, may be insufficient. In addition, new technology that could result in greater operational efficiency, such as our use of artificial intelligence, may further expose our computer systems to the risk of cybersecurity incidents.

 

Governance

 

As part of our overall risk management approach, we prioritize the identification and management of cybersecurity risk at several levels, including board of directors oversight, executive commitment and employee training. Our audit committee, comprised of independent directors, oversees the board of directors’ responsibilities relating to the operational (including IT risks, business continuity and data security) risk affairs of the Company. Our audit committee is informed of such risks through quarterly reports from our Vice President of IT, and the board of directors reviews our processes every six months.

 

Our VP of IT, who has over 25 years of experience in information technology in our company and is supported by management, oversees the implementation and compliance of our information security standards and mitigation of information security related risks.

 

At the employee level, we maintain an experienced information technology team who are tasked with implementing our privacy and cybersecurity program and support the VP of IT in carrying out reporting, security and mitigation functions. We also hold employee trainings on privacy and cybersecurity, records and information management, conduct phishing tests and generally seek to promote awareness of cybersecurity risk through communication and education of our employee population. Each of the software tools installed in order to prevent attacks generates real-time alerts. These alerts reach multiple people in our company, who are prepared to respond at any time. In case of a real threat, the CEO is notified.

 

 

PART III

 

Item 17. Financial Statements

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 18. Financial Statements

 

See pages F-1 through F-29 of this annual report attached hereto.

 

 

Item 19. Exhibits

 

The following exhibits are filed as part of this Annual Report:

 

Exhibit No.		Exhibit
1.1*		Memorandum of Association, as amended
1.2******		Articles of Association, as amended
2(d)****		Description of Ordinary Shares
4.1**		MIND 1998 Share Option Plan
4.2**		MIND 2000 Share Option Plan
4.3***		MIND 2011 Share Incentive Plan
4.4*****		Compensation Policy of Directors and Officers, dated May 26, 2019
8		List of Subsidiaries
11***		Code of Ethics and Business Conduct
12.1		Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to 17 CFR 240.13a-14(a), as adopted pursuant to §302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
12.2		Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to 17 CFR 240.13a-14(a), as adopted pursuant to §302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
13.1		Certification of Principal Executive Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1350, as adopted pursuant to § 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
13.2		Certification of Principal Financial Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1350, as adopted pursuant to § 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
15.1		Consent of Brightman Almagor Zohar & Co., a firm in the Deloitte Global Network
15.2		Consent of Fahn Kanne & Co. Grant Thornton Israel
97		Policy for Recovery of Erroneously Awarded Compensation
101		The following financial information from MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2023, formatted in XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language):
		(i) Consolidated Balance Sheets at December 31, 2023 and 2022;
		(ii) Consolidated Statements of Operations for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021;
		(iii) Consolidated Comprehensive Income for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021;
		(iv) Consolidated Statements of Changes in Shareholders’ Equity for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021;
		(v) Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021; and
		(vi) Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, tagged as blocks of text
104		Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as Inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101).

 

*

Incorporated by reference to MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2002.

**

Incorporated by reference to MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2003.

***

Incorporated by reference to MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011.

****

Incorporated by reference to MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019.

*****

Incorporated by reference to MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Notice of Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on Form 6K filed on April 16, 2019.

******

Incorporated by reference to MIND C.T.I. Ltd.’s Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.

 

 

SIGNATURES

 

The Registrant hereby certifies that it meets all of the requirements for filing on Form 20-F and has duly caused and authorized the undersigned to sign this annual report on its behalf.

 

MIND CTI LTD.

 

		/s/ Monica Iancu
	By:	Monica Iancu
	Title:	President and Chief Executive Officer
	Date:	March 18, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

 

CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

 

CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2023

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

		Page
REPORTS OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM (PCAOB ID No. 1375)		F-2
REPORTS OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM (PCAOB ID No. 1197)		F-4
CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS:
Consolidated balance sheets		F-5
Consolidated statements of operations		F-6
Consolidated statements of comprehensive income		F-7
Consolidated statements of changes in shareholders’ equity		F-8
Consolidated statements of cash flows		F-9
Notes to consolidated financial statements		F-10

 

 

Fahn Kanne & Co. Head Office 32 Hamasger Street Tel-Aviv 6721118, ISRAEL PO Box 36172, 6136101   T +972 3 7106666 F +972 3 7106660 www.grantthornton.co.il

  

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

 

To the shareholders and the Board of Directors of MIND C.T.I Ltd.

 

Opinion on the Financial Statements

 

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of MIND C.T.I Ltd. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income, changes in shareholders’ equity, and cash flows, for each of the two years in the period ended December 31, 2023, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the two years in the period ended December 31, 2023, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

 

Basis for opinion

 

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

 

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audits, we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.

 

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

 

Critical Audit Matter

 

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current-period audit of the financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates.

 

Certified Public Accountants

Fahn Kanne & Co. is the Israeli member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd

 

 

 

Critical Audit Matter Description

 

Goodwill Impairment Analysis

 

As described further in Note 1k and Note 4b to the consolidated financial statements, as of September 30, 2023, the Company performed goodwill impairment analysis with respect to goodwill balance with a total carrying amount of $7.9 million that was allocated to two reporting units. As disclosed in Note 1k, goodwill is not amortized but rather tested for impairment at least annually or most often if indicators of impairment are present. Management either assess qualitative factors to determine whether the existence of events or circumstances leads to a determination that it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying value, including goodwill (qualitative assessment) or elects to proceed directly to the impairment test and bypass the qualitative assessment. As part of the qualitative assessment, if, after assessing the totality of events or circumstances, the Company determines that it is not more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount, additional impairment testing is not required. Goodwill impairment is measured by comparing the fair value of a reporting unit with its carrying amount. The impairment test was based on a valuation performed by management. Judgments and assumptions used in the discounted cash flow model which included projected net cash flows from operations, short-term and long-term growth rates, weighted average cost of capital, interest, capital expenditures, cash flows, and market conditions. We identified the goodwill impairment analysis as a critical audit matter.

 

The principal considerations for our determination that the goodwill impairment assessment is a critical audit matter are the high degree of auditor judgment, effort and subjectivity in performing procedures and evaluating management’s fair value estimate, which included projected net cash flows from operations, estimated weighted average cost of capital and short-term and long-term growth rates for the reporting units. Given the subjective nature and judgment applied by management, auditing these estimates required a high degree of auditor judgment and an increased extent of effort, including the use of our valuation specialist.

 

Our audit procedures related to the annual goodwill impairment analysis of the reporting units included, among others, the following:

 

●

We evaluated the appropriateness of the discounted cash flow model; tested the completeness, accuracy and relevance of underlying data used in the model; and evaluated the reasonableness of significant assumptions used by management, including projected net cash flows from operations, estimated weighted average cost of capital and short-term and long-term growth rates for the reporting units. Our evaluation involved evaluating whether the assumptions used by management were reasonable considering (i) the current and past performance of the reporting unit, (ii) the consistency with external market and industry data, and (iii) the consistency of the assumptions used with evidence obtained in other areas of the audit.

 

●

We utilized a valuation specialist to assess the appropriateness of the impairment methodology used and to assist us with testing the appropriateness of the discount rate used (the estimated weighted average cost of capital) in the discounted cash flow model.

 

/s/ FAHN KANNE & CO. GRANT THORNTON ISRAEL

 

FAHN KANNE & CO. GRANT THORNTON ISRAEL

Certified Public Accountants (Isr.)

Tel-Aviv, March 18, 2024

 

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2022.

 

Certified Public Accountants

Fahn Kanne & Co. is the Israeli member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd

 

 

 

 

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

 

To the shareholders and the Board of Directors of MIND C.T.I Ltd.

 

Opinion on the Financial Statements

 

We have audited the accompanying consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income, changes in shareholders’ equity, and cash flows of MIND C.T.I Ltd. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) for the year in the period ended December 31, 2021, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the “financial statements”). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year in the period ended December 31, 2021, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

 

Basis for Opinion

 

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audit. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

 

We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audit, we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.

 

Our audit included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audit also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audit provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

 

/s/ Brightman Almagor Zohar & Co.

 

Brightman Almagor Zohar & Co.
Certified Public Accountants
A Firm in the Deloitte Global Network

 

Tel Aviv, Israel
April 10, 2022

 

We began serving as the Company’s auditor since 2009. In 2022, we became the predecessor auditor.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

 

				December 31,
				2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		Note		U.S. dollars in thousands
ASSETS
CURRENT ASSETS:
Cash and cash equivalents		8a		$	2,958			$	5,265
Short-term bank deposits		8a			13,464				12,040
Marketable securities					182				174
Accounts receivable (net of allowance for credit losses of $12 and $70 as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively)					2,295				2,357
Other current assets		8b			538				293
Prepaid expenses					277				169
Total current assets					19,714				20,298
NON-CURRENT ASSETS:
Accounts receivable					714				58
Severance pay fund		5			2,051				1,914
Deferred income taxes		7c			102				143
Property and equipment, net		2			216				225
Right-of-use assets, net		3			690				946
Intangible assets, net		4a			266				374
Goodwill		4b			7,872				7,785
Total assets				$	31,625			$	31,743
LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY
CURRENT LIABILITIES:
Accounts payable				$	989			$	937
Other current liabilities and accruals		8c			1,749				1,978
Current maturities of lease liabilities		3			218				271
Deferred revenues					1,517				1,986
Total current liabilities					4,473				5,172
LONG-TERM LIABILITIES:
Deferred revenues					100				107
Lease liabilities, net of current maturities		3			424				615
Accrued severance pay		5			2,060				1,930
Deferred income taxes					80				112
Total liabilities					7,137				7,936
SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY:		6
Share capital - Ordinary shares of NIS 0.01 par value – Authorized: 88,000,000 shares as of December 31, 2023 and 2022; Issued: 21,660,010 shares as of December 31, 2023 and 2022; Outstanding: 20,184,826 and 20,124,326 shares as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively					54				54
Additional paid-in capital					27,776				27,546
Accumulated other comprehensive loss					(1,001	)			(1,073	)
Accumulated deficit					(1,334	)			(1,662	)
Treasury shares - 1,475,184 and 1,535,684 shares as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively					(1,007	)			(1,058	)
Total shareholders’ equity					24,488				23,807
Total liabilities and shareholders’ equity				$	31,625			$	31,743

 

The accompanying notes are an integral part of the consolidated financial statements.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

 

				Years Ended December 31,
				2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
				U.S. dollars in thousands,
		Note		except per share data
REVENUES:		9a
Sales of licenses				$	558			$	611			$	1,548
Services					21,054				20,940				24,783
Total revenues					21,612				21,551				26,331
COST OF REVENUES
Cost of sales of licenses					115				108				86
Cost of services					10,631				9,936				12,364
Total cost of revenues					10,746				10,044				12,450
GROSS PROFIT					10,866				11,507				13,881
OPERATING EXPENSES:
Research and development					3,538				3,495				4,048
Selling and marketing					1,162				965				1,403
General and administrative					1,417				1,523				1,602
Total operating expenses					6,117				5,983				7,053
OPERATING INCOME					4,749				5,524				6,828
FINANCIAL INCOME, net		9b			777				93				55
INCOME BEFORE TAXES ON INCOME					5,526				5,617				6,883
TAXES ON INCOME		7			359				330				936
NET INCOME				$	5,167			$	5,287			$	5,947
EARNINGS PER SHARE - in U.S. dollars:		9c
Basic				$	0.26			$	0.26			$	0.30
Diluted				$	0.25			$	0.26			$	0.29
WEIGHTED AVERAGE NUMBER OF ORDINARY SHARES USED IN COMPUTATION OF EARNINGS PER SHARE – in thousands:		9c
Basic					20,163				20,099				20,006
Diluted					20,471				20,397				20,270

 

The accompanying notes are an integral part of the consolidated financial statements.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
NET INCOME		$	5,167			$	5,287			$	5,947
OTHER COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS):
Translation adjustments			72				(237	)			(314	)
TOTAL COMPREHENSIVE INCOME		$	5,239			$	5,050			$	5,633

 

The accompanying notes are an integral part of the consolidated financial statements.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CHANGES IN SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY

 

		Share capital												Accumulated
		Number								Additional				other
		of shares								paid-in				comprehensive				Accumulated				Treasury
		outstanding				Amount				capital				loss				deficit				shares				Total
		In thousands				U.S. dollars in thousands
BALANCE AS OF JANUARY 1, 2021			19,986			$	54			$	27,202			$	(522	)		$	(2,472	)		$	(1,143	)		$	23,119
CHANGES DURING 2021:
Comprehensive income			-				-				-				(314	)			5,947				-				5,633
Dividend paid ($0.26 per share) (Note 6c)			-				-				-				-				(5,197	)			-				(5,197	)
Employees share-based compensation expenses			-				-				171				-				-				-				171
Exercise of options issued to employees from treasury shares			71				-				(49	)			-				-				49				-
BALANCE AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2021			20,057				54				27,324				(836	)			(1,722	)			(1,094	)			23,726
CHANGES DURING 2022:
Comprehensive income			-				-				-				(237	)			5,287				-				5,050
Dividend paid ($0.26 per share) (Note 6c)			-				-				-				-				(5,227	)			-				(5,227	)
Employees share-based compensation expenses			-				-				258				-				-				-				258
Exercise of options issued to employees from treasury shares			67				-				(36	)			-				-				36				-
BALANCE AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2022			20,124				54				27,546				(1,073	)			(1,662	)			(1,058	)			23,807
CHANGES DURING 2023:
Comprehensive income			-				-				-				72				5,167				-				5,239
Dividend paid ($0.24 per share) (Note 6c)			-				-				-				-				(4,839	)			-				(4,839	)
Employees share-based compensation expenses			-				-				281				-				-				-				281
Exercise of options issued to employees from treasury shares			61				-				(51	)			-				-				51				-
BALANCE AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2023			20,185				54				27,776				(1,001	)			(1,334	)			(1,007	)			24,488

 

The accompanying notes are an integral part of the consolidated financial statements.

  

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES:
Net income		$	5,167			$	5,287			$	5,947
Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash
provided by operating activities:
Depreciation and amortization			196				193				194
Deferred income taxes, net			6				7				(96	)
Accrued severance pay			46				41				83
Unrealized loss from marketable securities			-				34				1
Unrealized gain from marketable securities			(8	)			-				-
Realized loss (gain) on sale of marketable securities, net			-				11				(3	)
Realized gain on sale of property and equipment			-				-				(3	)
Employees share-based compensation			281				258				171
Changes in operating asset and liability items:
Decrease (increase) in accounts receivable, net			(549	)			(666	)			243
Decrease (increase) in other current assets			(244	)			(149	)			117
Decrease (increase) in prepaid expenses			(108	)			(45	)			149
Increase (decrease) in accounts payable			20				139				(363	)
Increase (decrease) in other current liabilities and accruals			(243	)			(265	)			399
Change in operation lease liability			12				(71	)			(52	)
Increase (decrease) in deferred revenues			(476	)			(216	)			111
Net cash provided by operating activities			4,100				4,558				6,898
CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES:
Proceeds from sales of (investment in) marketable securities, net			-				(11	)			1,370
Purchase of property and equipment			(64	)			(130	)			(82	)
Proceeds from sales of property and equipment			-				-				3
Severance pay funds			(53	)			(61	)			(89	)
Proceeds from (investment in) short-term bank deposits			(1,424	)			2,031				(6,891	)
Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities			(1,541	)			1,829				(5,689	)
CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES:
Dividend paid			(4,839	)			(5,227	)			(5,197	)
Net cash used in financing activities			(4,839	)			(5,227	)			(5,197	)
TRANSLATION ADJUSTMENTS ON CASH AND CASH EQUIVILENTS			(27	)			(77	)			(90	)
INCREASE (DECREASE) IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS			(2,307	)			1,083				(4,078	)
BALANCE OF CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS AT BEGINNING OF YEAR			5,265				4,182				8,260
BALANCE OF CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS AT END OF YEAR		$	2,958			$	5,265			$	4,182
SUPPLEMENTAL DISCLOSURE OF CASH FLOW:
Taxes paid		$	419			$	413			$	903

 

The accompanying notes are an integral part of the consolidated financial statements.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 1 - SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

 

a.

General:

 

1)

Nature of operations:

 

MIND C.T.I. Ltd. is an Israeli company which, together with its subsidiaries (the “Company”), provides integrated products and services. The Company designs, develops, markets, supports, implements and operates billing and customer care systems, including consulting and managed services, primarily to wireless, wireline, next-generation service providers throughout the world. The Company also provides a call management system used by enterprises for call accounting, traffic analysis, and fraud detection. The Company, through its subsidiaries, also provides enterprise and wholesale messaging.

 

The Company has wholly-owned subsidiaries in the United States (MIND Software Inc.), Romania (MIND Software Srl), United Kingdom (MIND Software Limited) and Germany (MIND CTI GmbH and Message Mobile GmbH (“Message Mobile”)).

 

2)

The impact of Iron Sword War (Israel-Hamas War):

 

On October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel’s southern border towns near the Gaza Strip and carried out attacks on civilian and military targets that were extraordinary in scale and brutality. Hamas and other terrorist groups also launched extensive rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip against civilian targets in various parts of Israel. As a result, Israel declared war against Hamas, called up hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers and launched an extensive military campaign against them. In parallel, border clashes between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist group on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon have intensified and may escalate into a greater regional conflict. To date, the Company operations have not been adversely affected by the war. The Company has back-up IT systems and remote work ability that the Company expect will enable its operations to function well in the event of an emergency.

 

3)

Accounting principles:

 

The consolidated financial statements were prepared in accordance with the United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”).

 

4)

Use of estimates in preparation of financial statements:

 

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the dates of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting years. Actual results could differ from those estimates. The most significant estimates with regard to the Company`s consolidated financial statements relate to revenue recognition for projects that apply the percentage of completion measurement and goodwill impairment analysis.

 

5)

Functional currency:

 

The currency of the primary economic environment in which the operations of the Company and certain subsidiaries are conducted is the U.S. dollar (“dollar” or “$”). Most of the Company’s and its non-German subsidiaries’ revenues are derived from sales which are denominated primarily in dollars. In addition, the majority of the Company’s cash reserves and investments are denominated in dollars. Thus, the functional currency of the Company and certain subsidiaries is the dollar.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The Company and certain subsidiaries’ transactions and balances denominated in dollars are presented at their original amounts. Non-dollar transactions and balances have been remeasured to dollars in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 830, “Foreign Currency Matters”. All transaction gains and losses from remeasurement of monetary balance sheet items denominated in non-dollar currencies are reflected in the statements of operations as financial income or expenses, as appropriate.

 

The currency of the primary economic environment in which the operations of the Company’s German subsidiaries, Message Mobile and MIND CTI GmbH, are conducted is the Euro. Most of the revenues of the German subsidiaries, are denominated primarily in Euros. Thus, the functional currency of such subsidiaries is the Euro. For the purpose of consolidation of those subsidiaries, assets and liabilities are translated at year-end exchange rates and statement of operations’ items are translated at average exchange rates prevailing during the year. The resulting translation adjustments are recorded as a separate component of accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) in shareholders’ equity.

 

b.

Principles of consolidation:

 

The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and all of its wholly-owned subsidiaries.

 

Inter-company balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. Profits from inter-company sales, not yet realized outside the Company and its subsidiaries, have also been eliminated.

 

c.

Segment reporting:

 

The chief operating decision maker (the “CODM”) of the Company is the Chief Executive Officer. The CODM reviews financial information presented on a consolidated basis for the purposes of allocating resources and evaluating financial performance. The Company has two reporting segments, see Note 10.

 

d.

Cash and cash equivalents:

 

The Company consider all highly liquid investments, which include short-term bank deposits (up to three months from original date of deposit) that are not restricted as to withdrawal or use, to be cash equivalents.

 

e.

Fair value of financial instruments:

 

The Company records its financial assets and liabilities at fair value. The accounting guidance for fair value provides a framework for measuring fair value, clarifies the definition of fair value, and expands disclosures regarding fair value measurements. Fair value is defined as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability (an exit price) in an orderly transaction between market participants at the reporting date. The accounting guidance establishes a three-tiered hierarchy, which prioritizes the inputs used in the valuation methodologies in measuring fair value:

 

Level 1 – Quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or liabilities.

 

Level 2 – Inputs other than Level 1 that are observable, either directly or indirectly, such as quoted prices in markets that are not active, or other inputs that are observable or can be corroborated by observable market data for substantially the full term of the assets or liabilities.

 

Level 3 – Unobservable inputs that are supported by little or no market activity and that are significant to the fair value of the assets or liabilities.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

The Company recognizes transfers among Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 classifications as of the actual date of the events or change in circumstances that caused the transfers.

 

The Company’s financial instruments, including cash, cash equivalents, short-term bank deposits, marketable securities, accounts receivable, accounts payable and accruals have carrying amounts which is equal or approximate fair value due to the short-term maturity of these instruments.

 

The measurement of cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities are classified within Level 1.

 

f.

Short-term bank deposits:

 

Bank deposits with maturities of more than three months but less than one year are included in short-term bank deposits. These deposits are presented at cost and earn interest at market rates which present the fair value.

 

g.

Marketable securities:

 

Marketable securities are classified as “financial assets held at fair value through profit or loss” when held for trading or are designated upon initial recognition as financial assets at fair value through profit or loss.

 

Financial assets at fair value through profit or loss are shown at fair value. Any gain or loss arising from changes in fair value, including those originating from changes in exchange rates is recognized in profit or loss in the period in which the change occurred. Net gain or loss recognized in profit or loss incorporates any dividend or interest earned on the financial asset.

 

The Company invests in highly-rated marketable securities, and its policy limits the amount of credit exposure to any one issuer. The Company’s investment policy requires investments to be investment grade, rated BBB- or better, with the objective of minimizing the potential risk of principal loss. Fair values were determined for each individual security in the investment portfolio, based on quoted prices in active markets.

 

h.

Leases:

 

The Company adopted ASC 842, “Leases”. In accordance with ASC 842, the Company first determines if an arrangement contains a lease and the classification of that lease, if applicable, at inception. ASC 842 requires the recognition of right-of-use assets and lease liabilities for the Company’s operating leases.

 

i.

Property and equipment:

 

These assets are stated at cost, less accumulated depreciation and amortization.

 

The assets are depreciated by the straight-line method, on basis of their estimated useful life which best reflects the pattern of use.

 

Annual rates of depreciation are as follows:

 

		%
Computers and electronic equipment			15-33
Office furniture and equipment			6-7
Vehicles			15

 

Leasehold improvements are amortized by the straight-line method over the term of the lease, which is shorter than the estimated useful life of the improvements.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

j.

Intangible assets:

 

Intangible assets with definite lives are amortized over their estimated useful lives using the straight-line method which best reflects the pattern of use, at the following annual periods ranges:

 

		Years
Core technology			10.75
Customer relationships			5.75

 

The recoverability of these assets is measured by a comparison of the carrying amount of the asset to the undiscounted future cash flows expected to be generated by the assets. If the assets are considered to be impaired, the amount of any impairment is measured as the difference between the carrying value and the fair value of the impaired assets.

 

During the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, no impairment losses have been identified with respect to intangible assets.

 

k.

Goodwill:

 

Goodwill reflects the excess of the purchase price of subsidiaries acquired in business combination transactions over the fair value of net assets acquired. Under ASC 350, “Intangibles – Goodwill and Others”, goodwill is not amortized but rather tested for impairment at least annually or most often if indicators of impairment are present.

 

Events or changes in circumstances that could trigger an impairment review include macroeconomic and other industry specific factors including, among others, a significant adverse change in business climate, an adverse action or assessment by a regulator, unanticipated competition, a loss of key personnel, significant changes in the manner of the Company’s use of the acquired assets or the strategy for its overall business, significant negative industry or economic trends, or significant underperformance relative to expected historical or projected future results of operations.

 

The Company has the option to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether the existence of events or circumstances leads to a determination that it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying value, including goodwill. If, after assessing the totality of events or circumstances, the Company determines that it is not more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount, additional impairment testing is not required.

 

Alternatively, the Company may elect to proceed directly to the impairment test and bypass the qualitative assessment. Goodwill impairment is measured by comparing the fair value of a reporting unit with its carrying amount.

 

The Company performed the annual impairment tests as of September 30, 2023, 2022 and 2021 and did not identify any indication for impairment losses (see Note 4b). The impairment test was based on a valuation performed by management. Judgments and assumptions used in the discounted cash flow model which included projected net cash flows from operations, short-term and long-term growth rates, weighted average cost of capital, interest, capital expenditures, cash flows, and market conditions.

 

l.

Income taxes:

 

The Company accounts for income taxes, in accordance with the provisions of ASC 740, “Income Taxes”, under the liability method of accounting. Under the liability method, deferred taxes are determined based on the differences between the financial statement and tax basis of assets and liabilities at enacted tax rates in effect in the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. Valuation allowances in respect of the deferred tax assets are provided for if, based upon the weight of available evidence, it is more likely than not that all or a portion of the deferred income tax assets will not be realized.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Deferred tax liabilities and assets are classified as non-current.

 

For uncertain tax positions, the Company follows a two-step approach to recognizing and measuring uncertain tax positions. The first step is to evaluate the tax position for recognition by determining if the weight of available evidence indicates that it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained on audit. The second step is to measure the tax benefit as the largest amount that is more than 50% likely of being realized upon ultimate resolution. The Company’s policy is to include interest and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits within income tax expenses.

 

m.

Revenue recognition:

 

The Company generates its revenues from software licensing, sales of professional services including integration and implementation, maintenance services, managed services and mobile messaging services.

 

The Company applies ASC 606, “Revenue from Contracts with Customers”. Under ASC 606, revenue is measured as the amount of consideration the Company expects to be entitled to, in exchange for transferring products or providing services to its customers and is recognized when performance obligations under the terms of contracts with the Company’s customers are satisfied. ASC 606 prescribes a five-step model for recognizing revenue from contracts with customers: (i) identify contract(s) with the customer; (ii) identify the separate performance obligations in the contract; (iii) determine the transaction price; (iv) allocate the transaction price to the separate performance obligations in the contract; and (v) recognize revenue when (or as) each performance obligation is satisfied.

 

Deferred revenues include unearned amounts received from customers (mostly for ongoing maintenance and customizations performed for existing customers) but are not yet recognized as revenues. Such deferred revenues are recognized as described below.

 

The Company applies the provisions of ASC 606, as follows:

 

i)

Sale of standard licensed products

 

Revenue from perpetual licenses is classified as software license revenue. Software license revenue is recognized as a point in time upon transfer of control to the customer which usually occurs when the licensed product and the utility that enables the customer to access authorization keys is delivered, provided that a signed contract has been received.

 

ii)

Services

 

Revenues from ongoing maintenance and support fees are recognized over time on a pro-rated basis over the duration of the contract. Revenues earned from time and material arrangements, usually based on a pre agreed monthly rates, recognized over time, based on the duration of the contract and the service time provided to date.

 

Ongoing work on customizations performed for existing customers is generally provided on a fixed price basis and as such revenue is recognized when the related services are performed.

 

Contracts may include a combination of the Company’s various products and services offerings, software, consulting services, and maintenance. For contracts with multiple performance obligations, the Company accounts for individual performance obligations separately if they are distinct. Significant judgment may be required to identify distinct obligations within a contract.

 

The total transaction price is allocated to the individual performance obligations based on the ratio of the relative established standalone selling prices (SSP), or the Company’s best estimate of SSP, of each distinct product or service in the contract. Revenue is then recognized for each distinct performance obligation.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

Measuring Progress towards Completion

 

Where a performance obligation is satisfied over time for an upgrade or implementation project that requires significant customer modifications and complex implementation, revenue is recognized over time, as the Company’s performance does not create an asset with an alternative use and the Company has an enforceable right to payment, including a reasonable profit, based on the percentage of completion using the input method. This method relies on the Company’s internal measure of progress, compared to the total effort to complete the modifications and implementation utilizing direct labor as the input measure. Estimates are based on the total number of hours performed on the project, compared to the total number of hours expected to complete the project. The estimate of the total number of hours to complete a project is inherently judgmental and depends upon the complexity of the work being undertaken, the customization being made to software and the customer environment being interfaced to. The scope of projects frequently changes, consequently, the judgement of total estimate at completion is subjected to a high level of review at all stages in a project life cycle.

 

Managed Services

 

Revenues from managed services include a monthly fee for services and a right to access the Company’s software and are recorded as service revenues. The Company does not provide the customer with the contractual right to take possession of the software at any time during the period under these contracts. The monthly fee is based mainly on the number of subscribers or customer’s business volume and the contracts include a minimum monthly charge. These revenues are recognized over time on a monthly basis when those services are satisfied.

 

iii)

Mobile Messaging Transactions

 

Certain of the Company’s subsidiaries in Germany provide mobile messaging services, via text messages (SMS) and IP (Internet Protocol) messaging channels. Revenues from mobile messaging services are recognized when the messaging service has been rendered, i.e., the messages are delivered to the recipient. The revenue amount is based on the price specified in the contract.

 

n.

Research and development expenses:

 

Pursuant to ASC 985-20, “Software - Costs of Software to be Sold, Leased, or Marketed”, development costs related to software products are expensed as incurred until the “technological feasibility” of the product has been established. Because of the relatively short time period between “technological feasibility” and product release, and the insignificant amount of costs incurred during such period, no software development costs have been capitalized.

 

o.

Share-based compensation:

 

The Company accounts for share-based compensation in accordance with ASC 718, “Compensation - Stock Compensation”, which requires the measurement and recognition of compensation expense based on estimated fair values for all share-based payment awards made to employees. ASC 718 requires companies to estimate the fair value of equity-based payment awards on the date of grant using an option-pricing model. The value of the portion of the award that is ultimately expected to vest is recognized as an expense over the requisite service periods in the Company’s consolidated statements of operations.

 

The Company recognizes compensation cost for an award with only service conditions that has a graded vesting schedule using the straight-line method over the requisite service period for the entire award, net of estimated forfeitures.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

p.

Earnings per share (“EPS”):

 

Basic EPS is computed by dividing net income by the weighted average number of shares outstanding during the year, net of treasury shares.

 

Diluted EPS reflects the increase in the weighted average number of shares outstanding that would result from the assumed exercise of employee stock options, calculated using the treasury stock method.

 

q.

Treasury shares:

 

Treasury shares are presented as a reduction of shareholders’ equity, at their cost to the Company, under “Treasury shares”.

 

r.

Concentration of credit risks:

 

Most of the cash and cash equivalents and short-term deposits of the Company and its subsidiaries are deposited with Israeli, European and U.S. banks. The Company is not aware of any specific credit risks in respect of these banks.

 

The Company’s revenues have been generated from a large number of customers. Consequently, the exposure to credit risks relating to trade receivables is limited. The Company performs ongoing credit evaluations of its customers for the purpose of determining the appropriate allowance for credit losses.

 

s.

Recently issued accounting pronouncements:

 

Some accounting pronouncements which have become effective from January 1, 2023 and have therefore been adopted, The adoption of such pronouncement did not have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial statements.

 

On November 27, 2023, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”) issued Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2023-07, “Segment Reporting (Topic 280): Improvements to Reportable Segment Disclosure", (“ASU 2023-07”). ASU 2023-07 is aimed to improve reportable segment disclosure requirements, primarily through enhanced disclosures about significant segment expenses. In accordance with ASU 2023-07, public entities are required to disclose significant segment expenses by reportable segment if they are regularly provided to the CODM and included in each reported measure of segment profit or loss. Such disclosures are required on both an annual and an interim basis. In addition, the amendments in ASU 2023-07 enhance interim disclosure by requiring that all existing annual disclosures about segment profit or loss must be provided on an interim basis in addition to disclosure of significant segment expenses and other segment items. ASU 2023-07 also clarifies circumstances in which an entity can disclose multiple segment measures of profit or loss. ASU 2023-07 is effective in a retrospective manner, for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2023. The Company is in the process of evaluating what impact ASU 2023-07 will have on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.

 

On December 14, 2023, the FASB issued ASU 2023-09, Income Taxes (Topic 740): Improvements to Income Tax Disclosures (“ASC 2023-09”). ASU 2023-09 requires disaggregated information about a reporting entity’s effective tax rate reconciliation as well as information on income taxes paid. ASU 2023-09 applies to all entities subject to income taxes. The amendments require that public business entities ((“PBEs”) on an annual basis (i) disclose specific categories in the rate reconciliation; and (ii) provide additional information for reconciling items that meet a quantitative threshold (if the effect of those reconciling items is equal to or greater than 5 percent of the amount computed by multiplying pretax income (or loss) by the applicable statutory income tax rate). Specifically, PBEs are required to disclose a tabular reconciliation, using both percentages and reporting currency amounts, according to specific categories. Separate disclosure is required for any reconciling item in which the effect of the item is equal to or greater than 5 percent of the amount computed by multiplying the income (or loss) from continuing operations before income taxes by the applicable statutory income tax rate. Also, ASU 2023-09 require entities to disclose on an annual basis, information about income taxes paid, including the amount of income taxes paid (net of refunds received) disaggregated by federal (national), state, and foreign taxes and the amount of income taxes paid (net of refunds received) disaggregated by individual jurisdictions in which income taxes paid (net of refunds received) is equal to or greater than 5 percent of total income taxes paid (net of refunds received). Also, the amendments in ASU 2023-09 eliminate certain disclosure requirements. ASU 2023-09 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024. The Company is in the process of evaluating what impact ASU 2023-09 will have on consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.

 

The Company has evaluated other recently issued accounting pronouncements that are not yet effective and does not currently believe that any of these pronouncements will have a material impact on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 2 - PROPERTY AND EQUIPMENT, NET

 

a.

Composition of assets, grouped by major classification, is as follows:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Computers and electronic equipment		$	2,148			$	2,089
Office furniture and equipment			158				158
Vehicles			116				121
Leasehold improvements			27				27
			2,449				2,395
Less - accumulated depreciation and amortization			(2,233	)			(2,170	)
		$	216			$	225

 

b.

Depreciation expenses totaled $76 thousand, $77 thousand and $63 thousand in the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

 

c.

Property and equipment, net - by geographical location:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Israel		$	88			$	74
Romania			58				70
Germany			70				81
Total		$	216			$	225

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 3 – LEASES

 

The Company has entered into various non-cancelable operating lease agreements for certain office spaces. The leases have original lease periods expiring between 2024 and 2028. The Company does not assume renewals in its determination of the lease term unless the renewals are considered as reasonably assured.

 

The following represents the aggregate right-of-use assets and related lease liabilities from operating lease agreements for certain offices as:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Amounts recognized in the consolidated balance sheet – Right-of-use assets, net		$	690			$	946
Current liabilities		$	218			$	271
Long-term liabilities			424				615
Total operating leased liabilities		$	642			$	886

 

In the third quarter of 2022, the Company returned one floor of office space in Romania, which resulted in a decrease of the right-of-use asset and in the lease liability in the amount of approximately $173 thousand. There were no additional changes in the lease terms in the reported years.

 

The weighted average lease term and weighted average discount rate as of December 31, 2023, were as follows:

 

Weighted average lease term – operating lease			3.7 years
Weighted average discount rate – operating lease			6.73	%

 

The future cash flows related to the operating lease liabilities as of December 31, 2023, were as follows:

 

		U.S. dollars in thousands
Years ending December 31:
2024			250
2025			145
2026			141
2027			141
2028			40
Total lease payments (undiscounted)			717
Less – discount to net present value			(75	)
Present value of lease liabilities		$	642

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 4 – GOODWILL AND OTHER INTANGIBLE ASSETS

 

a.

Definite-lived intangible assets:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Core technology		$	312			$	312
Customer relationships			545				545
			857				857
Less – accumulated amortization			(586	)			(524	)
			271				333
Functional currency translation adjustments			(6	)			41
Total intangible assets, net		$	266			$	374

 

b.

Goodwill

 

		Billing and related services				Messaging				Total
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Balance as of January 1, 2022		$	5,430			$	2,499			$	7,929
Changes during the year ended December 31, 2022:
Functional currency translation adjustments			-				(144	)			(144	)
Balance as of December 31, 2022		$	5,430			$	2,355			$	7,785
Changes during the year ended December 31, 2023:
Functional currency translation adjustments			-				87				87
Balance as of December 31, 2023		$	5,430			$	2,442			$	7,872

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 5 – SEVERANCE PAY

 

Israeli law generally requires payment of severance pay upon dismissal of an employee or upon termination of employment in certain other circumstances. The severance pay liability of the Company to its Israeli employees, based upon the number of years of service and the latest monthly salary, is partially covered by regular deposits with severance pay funds and pension funds, and by purchase of insurance policies; under labor agreements, the deposits with recognized pension funds and the insurance policies, as above, are in the employees’ names and are, subject to certain limitations, the property of the employees.

 

The Company has entered into an agreement with some of its employees implementing Section 14 of the Israeli Severance Pay Law, 1963 and the general approval of the Minister of Labor dated June 30, 1998, issued in accordance with such Section 14. The agreement mandates that upon termination of such employees’ employment, all the amounts accrued in their severance funds, pension funds and by the insurance policies will be released to them. The severance pay liabilities and deposits covered by these plans are not reflected in the balance sheet, as the severance pay risks have been irrevocably transferred to the severance funds, pension funds and insurance companies.

 

The amounts accrued and the portions funded, with severance pay funds, pension funds and by the insurance policies are reflected in the financial statements as follows:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Accrued severance pay		$	2,060			$	1,930
Severance pay fund			(2,051	)			(1,914	)
Unfunded balance		$	9			$	16

 

The amounts of accrued severance pay as above cover the Company’s severance pay liability in accordance with labor agreements in force and based on salary components which, in management’s opinion, create entitlement to severance pay. The Company records the obligation as if it was payable at each balance sheet date on an undiscounted basis.

 

Withdrawals from the funds are generally made for the purpose of paying severance pay.

 

The severance pay expenses were $53 thousand, $61 thousand and $89 thousand in the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 6 - SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY

 

a.

Share capital:

 

The Company’s ordinary shares are traded in the United States on the Nasdaq Global Market, under the symbol MNDO. The Ordinary shares of the Company confer upon their holders the right to receive notice to participate and vote in general meetings of the Company and the right to receive dividends, if and when, declared.

 

b.

Treasury shares:

 

During the period between September 2008 and December 2009, the Company purchased an aggregate number of 3,165,092 ordinary shares for a total consideration of approximately $2.8 million. Currently, the Company does not have an active buyback plan. As of December 31, 2023, the remaining treasury shares are 1,475,184 ordinary shares which amounted to $1,007 thousand. The treasury shares are mainly utilized by the Company to settle exercise of options by employees. During the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 treasury shares were utilized in amounts of 61 thousand, 67 thousand and 72 thousand, respectively.

 

c.

Dividend:

 

Dividends paid per share in the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 were $0.24, $0.26 and $0.26, respectively.

 

The Company paid dividends to its shareholders in the total amounts of approximately $4.8 million, $5.2 million and $5.2 million during the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

 

d.

Stock option plan:

 

In 2011, the Board of Directors and the Company’s shareholders approved a ten-year share incentive plan (the “2011 Share Incentive Plan”) that was further extended by the Board of Directors for additional ten years. Under the 2011 Share Incentive Plan, options for up to 1,800,000 ordinary shares of NIS 0.01 par value can be granted to employees, directors, consultants or contractors of the Company and its subsidiaries.

 

Each option can be exercised to purchase one ordinary share. Immediately upon issuance, the ordinary shares issuable upon the exercise of the options will confer their holders the same rights as the other ordinary shares.

 

The Board of Directors determines the exercise price and the vesting period of the options granted. The outstanding options granted under the abovementioned plan vest over 2-4 years on service basis. Options not exercised will expire five years after the day of grant.

 

The compensation costs charged against income for the 2011 Share Incentive Plan were comprised as follows:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Cost of revenues		$	60			$	63			$	49
Research and development expenses			180				159				90
Selling and marketing expenses			3				1				4
General and administrative expenses			38				35				28
		$	281			$	258			$	171

 

Under Section 102 of the Israeli Income Tax Ordinance (New Version), 1961 (the “Israeli Tax Ordinance”), pursuant to an election made by the Company thereunder, Israeli employees (except for employees who are deemed “Controlling Members” under the Israeli Income Tax Ordinance) are subject to a lower tax rate of 25% on part of the capital gains accruing to them in respect of Section 102 awards. However, the Company is not allowed to claim as an expense for tax purposes the amounts credited as income for tax purposes to such employees.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

1)

The following is a summary of the status of the 2011 Share Incentive Plan as of December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, and changes during the years ended on those dates:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3								2 0 2 2								2 0 2 1
		Number				Weighted average exercise price				Number				Weighted average exercise price				Number				Weighted average exercise price
Options outstanding at the beginning of year			452,500			$	0.003				269,500			$	0.003				266,500			$	0.003
Changes during year:
Granted (a)			132,000			$	0.003				304,000			$	0.003				172,000			$	0.003
Exercised			(60,500	)		$	0.003				(67,000	)		$	0.003				(71,500	)		$	0.003
Forfeited			(15,000	)		$	0.003				(54,000	)		$	0.003				(96,500	)		$	0.003
Expired			(8,000	)		$	0.003				-			$	0.003				(1,000	)		$	0.003
Options outstanding at the end of year			501,000			$	0.003				452,500			$	0.003				269,500			$	0.003
Options exercisable at the end of year			30,000			$	0.003				25,500			$	0.003				30,000			$	0.003
Weighted average grant date fair value of options granted during the year (b)						$	1.28							$	1.58							$	1.79

 

(a)	In the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 and 2021, the options were granted with an exercise price equal to par value of NIS 0.01 ($0.003).

 

(b)	The fair value of each stock option granted is computed on the date of grant according to the Black-Scholes option pricing model with the following assumptions:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
Dividend yield			10.48	%			9.69	%			8.73	%
Expected volatility*			51	%			30	%			34	%
Average risk-free interest rate			4.53	%			1.99	%			0.81	%
Expected average term - in years			3.88				3.88				3.88

 

*	Volatility is based on the historical volatility of the Company’s share price for periods matching the expected term of the option until exercise.

 

As of December 31, 2023, there were approximately $517 thousand of total unrecognized compensation costs, net of expected forfeitures, related to unvested share-based compensation awards granted under the 2011 Share Incentive Plan. The costs are expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of 1.29 years.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

2)

The following table summarizes information about options outstanding and exercisable as of December 31, 2023:

 

Options Outstanding

Options Exercisable

Number

Weighted

Number

Weighted

outstanding

average

Weighted

exercisable

average

Weighted

Range of

at

remaining

average

at

remaining

average

exercise

December 31,

contractual

exercise

December 31,

contractual

exercise

prices

2 0 2 3

life

price

2 0 2 3

life

price

Years

Years

$

0.003

501,000

3.27

$

0.003

30,000

1.45

$

0.003

 

The total intrinsic value of options exercised during the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 were approximately $129 thousand, $184 thousand and $235 thousand, respectively. As of December 31, 2023 the aggregate intrinsic value of the outstanding options is $980 thousand, and the aggregate intrinsic value of the exercisable options is $59 thousand.

 

NOTE 7 - TAXES ON INCOME

 

a.

Israeli corporate tax

 

1)

Tax benefits under the Law for the Encouragement of Industry (Taxes), 1969:

 

The Company is an “Industrial Company”, as defined by this law. As such, the Company is entitled to claim depreciation at increased rates for equipment used in industrial activity, as stipulated by regulations published under the Income Tax (Inflationary Adjustments) Law, 1985.

 

2)

Tax benefits under the Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investments, 1959 (the “Investment Law”):

 

On February 18, 2018 and on February 16, 2022, the Company received a status of “Technologic Preferred Enterprise” as defined under the Investment Law (the “Approvals”). In accordance with the Approvals, starting in 2017 and until 2026, income originating from granting the right of use as defined in the Approval, will be defined as Technologic Preferred Income, as defined under the Law, and will be subject to a tax rate of 7.5%. The reduced tax rate applies only with respect to the revenue attributable to the portion of intellectual property developed in Israel. The Preferred Technological Income is calculated for each tax year by applying the “Nexus” formula as detailed in the Israeli regulations.

 

Dividends distributed from income which is attributed to a “Technologic Preferred Enterprise” will be subject to withholding tax of 20%, subject to a reduced tax rate under the provisions of an applicable double taxation treaty.

 

b.

Other applicable tax rates:

 

1)

Income from other sources in Israel

 

The tax rate relevant to corporates in Israel in the year 2021 and thereafter is 23%.

 

2)

Income of non-Israeli subsidiaries

 

Non-Israeli subsidiaries are taxed according to tax laws in their countries of residence (19% in the U.K, 30% in Germany, 21% in U.S. and 16% in Romania).

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

c.

Deferred income taxes:

 

1)

Provided in respect of the following:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Research and development expenses, which are recognized for tax purposes over three years		$	95			$	105
Carryforward tax losses, see (2) below			1,134				1,388
Other			7				10
Less - valuation allowance, see (2) below			(1,134	)			(1,360	)
		$	102			$	143

 

Deferred income tax assets are presented in the balance sheet among non-current assets. Also, as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, the Company has deferred income tax liability in amount of $80 thousand and $112 thousand, respectively, which is calculated on temporary difference on intangible assets, which were recorded as a part of Message Mobile’s acquisition. Deferred income tax liability is presented in the balance sheet among long-term liabilities.

 

2)

As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, the Company has provided valuation allowances in respect of certain deferred tax assets in certain subsidiaries resulting from tax losses carryforward due to uncertainty concerning their realization.

 

d.

Taxes on income included in the statements of operations:

 

1)

As follows:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Current:
In Israel		$	308			$	335			$	687
Outside Israel			45				(12	)			346
			353				323				1,033
Deferred:
In Israel			12				1				(18	)
Outside Israel			(6	)			6				(79	)
		$	359			$	330			$	936

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

2)

Following is a reconciliation of the theoretical tax expense, assuming all income is taxed at the regular tax rates applicable to companies in Israel (see b. above), and the actual tax expense:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Income before taxes on income, as reported in the statements of operations*		$	5,526			$	5,617			$	6,883
Theoretical tax expense			1,271				1,292				1,583
Less - tax benefits arising from Technologic Preferred Enterprise status, see a. above			(757	)			(797	)			(739	)
			514				495				844
Increase (decrease) in taxes resulting from other differences:
Disallowable deductions			140				20				38
Taxes on income from previous years			(88	)			(80	)			169
Changes in valuation allowance			(178	)			(119	)			(127	)
Other			(29	)			14				12
Taxes on income for the reported years:		$	359			$	330			$	936
* As follows:
Taxable in Israel		$	4,830			$	5,144			$	4,936
Taxable outside Israel			696				473				1,947
		$	5,526			$	5,617			$	6,883

 

e.

Tax assessments:

 

On March 23, 2023, the Company has received final assessments from the Israel Tax Authority for the 2018-2021 tax years.

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 8 - SUPPLEMENTARY BALANCE SHEET INFORMATION

 

a.

Cash, cash equivalents and short-term bank deposits:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Cash		$	2,187			$	4,535
Cash equivalents			771				730
Total cash and cash equivalents		$	2,958			$	5,265
Short-term bank deposits*		$	13,464			$	12,040

 

*	The average interest rate on short-term deposits is 6.05% and 4.15%, as of December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

 

b.

Other current assets:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Government institutions		$	114			$	36
Employees			9				31
Interest receivable			344				185
Sundry			71				41
		$	538			$	293

 

c.

Other current liabilities and accruals:

 

		December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Payroll and related expenses		$	814			$	840
Government institutions			135				277
Accrued vacation pay			68				64
Accrued expenses and sundry			732				797
		$	1,749			$	1,978

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

NOTE 9 - SELECTED STATEMENT OF OPERATIONS DATA

 

a.

Revenues:

 

1)

The Company’s revenues derive from sale of software products and services in two operating segments, see Note 10. The Company has three product lines: (i) product line “A” - billing and customer care solutions for service providers; (ii) product line “B” - call accounting and call management solutions for enterprises; and (iii) product line “C” – mobile messaging and communication solutions. Product lines “A” and “B” relate to the billing and related services reporting segment and product line “C” relates to the messaging reporting segment.

 

The following table sets forth the revenues classified by product lines:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Product line “A”		$	11,497			$	11,545			$	12,069
Product line “B”			2,127				2,343				2,286
Product line “C”			7,988				7,663				11,976
		$	21,612			$	21,551			$	26,331

  

2)

The following table sets forth the geographical revenues classified by geographical location of the customers:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
The Americas		$	7,897			$	8,536			$	9,421
Europe			11,633				11,382				14,702
Israel			920				825				1,366
Other			1,162				808				842
		$	21,612			$	21,551			$	26,331

 

b.

Financial income, net:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Income:
Interest on bank deposits and short-term investments		$	737			$	262			$	110
Non-dollar currency gains, net			50				-				-
Unrealized gain from marketable securities			8				-				-
Realized gain from sale of marketable securities			-				-				3
Other financial income			10				58				-
			805				320				113
Expenses:
Non-dollar currency losses, net			-				(99	)			(8	)
Unrealized loss from marketable securities			-				(34	)			(1	)
Realized loss from sale of marketable securities			-				(11	)			-
Bank commissions and charges			(27	)			(23	)			(49	)
Other financial expenses			-				(60	)			-
			(27	)			(227	)			(58	)
		$	777			$	93			$	55

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

c.

Earnings per ordinary share (“EPS”):

 

The following table sets forth the computation of the Company’s basic and diluted EPS:

 

		Years Ended December 31,
		2 0 2 3				2 0 2 2				2 0 2 1
		In thousands
Weighted average number of shares issued and outstanding - used in computation of basic EPS			20,163				20,099				20,006
Incremental shares from assumed exercise of options			308				298				264
Weighted average number of shares used in computation of diluted EPS			20,471				20,397				20,270

 

NOTE 10 - REPORTABLE SEGMENTS

 

The Company applies ASC 280, “Segment Reporting”. ASC 280 establishes standards for reporting information about operating segments. Operating segments are defined as components of an enterprise about which separate financial information is available that is evaluated regularly by the CODM in deciding how to allocate resources and in assessing performance.

 

As described in Note 1c, the CODM of the Company is the Chief Executive Officer. The CODM assesses the performance of each segment and allocates resources to those segments based on net revenues and operating results and does not evaluate the Company’s reportable segments using discrete asset information.

 

		Year Ended December 31, 2023
		Billing and Related Services				Messaging				Total
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Revenues		$	13,624			$	7,988			$	21,612
Operating income		$	4,623			$	126			$	4,749

 

		Year Ended December 31, 2022
		Billing and Related Services				Messaging				Total
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Revenues			$ 13,888			$	7,663			$	21,551
Operating income		$	5,105			$	419			$	5,524

 

 

MIND C.T.I. LTD. AND SUBSIDIARIES
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

		Year Ended December 31, 2021
		Billing and Related Services				Messaging				Total
		U.S. dollars in thousands
Revenues		$	14,355			$	11,976			$	26,331
Operating income		$	4,818			$	2,010			$	6,828

 

Revenues from one customer of the Company’s billing and related services segment represent approximately 12%, 12% and 7% of the total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

 

NOTE 11 - RELATED PARTIES

 

a.

Balances

 

As of December 31, 2023 and 2022, the Company had a short-term accrual in the amount of $240 thousand, pursuant to the compensation policy regarding the Chief Executive Officer’s annual bonus.

 

b.

Transactions

 

During the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, the Company recorded salary expenses, cash bonus and directors’ fees to its related parties in the amount of $598 thousand, $615 thousand and $596 thousand, respectively.

 

NOTE 12 - SUBSEQUENT EVENT

 

On March 6, 2024, the Company declared a cash dividend to its shareholders in the amount of approximately $4.8 million ($0.24 per share).

 

 

F-29