Schwartz, Shuki

Shuki Schwartz began playing basketball in the children's teams of the suburbs of Haifa Kiryat Motzkin . In 1971, in the youth team of Israel, he took sixth place in the European Championship among cadets ^[1] , and a year later - fourth in the European Championship under the age of 18 years ^[2] ).

With 20 years, Schwartz played in the national club championship in Israel . After spending two seasons for the Hapoel Club (Haifa), he then moved to Tel Aviv-based Maccabi , where over the next six years he won the Israeli Champion title and the Israel Cup five times. During this period, Schwartz twice (in 1977 and 1981) became the owner of the most prestigious European club trophy, the European Cup, with Maccabi. At the end of his performances with Maccabi, Schwartz played for Tel Aviv's Beitar two more years, ending his career at age 29 due to a severe back injury ^[3] . During his career, he scored 2878 points in the Israeli Championship (of which 1533 points were for Maccabi) and is one of the hundred top scorers of the Israeli Championship in its history. As part of the Israeli national team, Schwartz participated in three European championships (1975, 1977 and 1979) ^[4] , in the last cycle becoming the vice-champion of the continent with the team. In total, Schwartz brought 148 points during the performance.

After completing his playing career, Shuki Schwartz, who had a degree in industrial engineering ^[5] , joined the family-owned company that produced custom-made furniture for institutions. The workshop, founded by his father and two uncles, worked in another suburb of Haifa - Kiryat Ata . Shuki's personal fame helped attract additional investors, and the company, dubbed the “Finish,” began to grow. At the peak of growth, “Finish” employed 290 people, and office furniture sales reached $ 90 million per year ^[3] .

In 2000, Finish was acquired by the Canadian company Teknion, one of the world's largest manufacturers of office furniture. Schwartz held the position of Director of Marketing and Sales for five years in the combined company. In 2005, he invested in the Israeli family-owned enterprise Tolmans, which produces furniture and home accessories, acquiring a 50% stake ^[3] . Schwartz’s former Beitar partner Zwick Giyur and Yitzhak Suari also joined the shareholders, and later advertising specialist Joram Bauman. Schwartz took over as CEO of Tolmans and also set about expanding it. By the second half of 2012, the company had nine stores, including one in Milan. In addition to its own production, Tolmans works with such well-known designers as , Philippe Starck , Karim Rashid and others ^[6] .

Along with the furniture business, Schwartz also invests in other areas of the economy. In 1997, he became one of the founders of Nextek's high-tech company, remaining a member of its board of directors for the next decade and retaining a 30% stake after the company specializing in 3D scanning and laser-based measuring instruments sold for 520 thousand dollars to manufacturers of scanners Wizcom Technologies. He heads the investment company bearing his name ^[3] and is on the board of directors of the chemical company Maxima Air Separation ^[7] .

• Profile on the Maccabi Club website (Tel Aviv) (Hebrew)
• Statistics on the website Basket.co.il (Hebrew)
• Shuki Schwartz on Bloomberg