Illinois increases Israel Bonds investment

In a direct response to the Hamas’ attack on October 7, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs invested an additional $30 million in Israel Bonds.

“After October 7, a lot of people were putting out thoughts and prayers statements,” Frerichs recalled. “I said to my staff, ‘We could do that, but there is more that we can do.’ The obvious choice was to invest in Israel Bonds.”

He has invested in Israel Bonds since taking office in 2015. According to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office, Illinois’ investment now exceeds $120 million under Frerichs’ leadership.

 

“As an investment strategy, you want to get good returns, maintain liquidity, and diversify,” Frerichs said. “Israel Bonds have good returns and they have never been defaulted upon in the 70-plus years they have been around. It’s also a nice way to reaffirm the special relationship between the State of Illinois and the only democracy in the Middle East.”

“Development Corp for Israel/Israel Bonds is a broker dealer and Israel bonds are an investment,” explained Janice Wahnon, Executive Director of the Midwest Region at Israel Bonds. “Investors receive interest twice a year or at maturity and have received interest and principal consistently for over 72 years.”

 

Israeli’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, first considered seeking direct investment through Israeli bonds in 1950 and the first sale in the United States was completed in 1951. Today, investments go towards the support of every sector of Israel’s economy and during the first 30 days of the war, Israel Bonds secured more than $1 billion worldwide.

According to Dr. Lee Shulman, Chicago Council Chair for Israel Bonds “We are going to be doing programming that is focused on Israeli security, the prosecution of the war, and the overall impact of the war,” he explained. “These bonds now make more of an impact on Israeli financial integrity than perhaps they did in the past.”