Israeli defence firm Avnon takes AIM with flotation plans

A controversial Israeli defence and security firm, whose products include electronic stun-guns and anti-drone tech, is working up plans for a London float, the Standard can reveal.

Tel Aviv-based Avnon Group is understood to be working with advisers Stifel over plans to launch on the Alternative Investment Market later this year, potentially putting a price tag of up to £200 million on the company, according to City sources.

The company, which supplies equipment and training to the Israeli government as well as international customers, was set up by Tomer Avnon in 1990. Most recently one of its subsidiaries, TAR Ideal Concepts, was reported to have trained Burmese special forces in northern Rakhine, where the government has been accused of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

In 2005, the firm was thrown out of a London arms fair for offering products such as stun guns and leg irons for sale although Avnon told the Jerusalem Post then that the move was the “height of hypocrisy” because “we were among booths offering everything from sniper rifles to silencers, cluster bombs and all sorts of nasty stuff”.

Alongside TAR’s training and equipment, it has cyber-security subsidiaries and a Skylock anti-drone system which promises either to jam or destroy the machines using a “laser burner” . The group also runs Isdef, which was set up in 2007 and is Israel’s leading defence and homeland security trade show. According to its website, the next Isdef event will host some 300 firms and 15000 delegates.

In an interview last year Avnon identified the cyber-hacking threat as a “main growth area”, saying: “We leverage it on behalf of our customers”. Stifel and Avnon declined to comment on the float plans.