Ofer inheritance battle heats up

Doron Ofer claims he was ejected from an Ofer Investments board meeting after asking to see documents about transfers of money.

The Ofer family feud between siblings Doron and Leora, the children of the late Yuli Ofer, is heating up. Today, Doron filed with the Tel Aviv District Court a motion against the family company, Ofer Investments Ltd., which owns the controlling shares in Mizrahi Tefahot Bank (TASE:MZTF) and the controlling interest in income-producing real estate company Melisron Ltd. (TASE: MLSR). In the motion, Doron contends that he was asked to leave a board meeting of Ofer Investments, after he asked to be shown documents about what he claimed were extraordinary transfers of money.

Doron Ofer claims that he raised the demand after he obtained a document earlier this year, which he says clearly indicates that "in the past three years, his sister, Leora, received surplus money from the company, which exceeded by millions of shekels the amount to which she is entitled, pursuant to the explicit instructions of the 2003 agreement, to which Ofer Investments is a party."

In the motion, Doron Ofer is seeking disclosure of various documents, after claiming a "systematic, gross, and baseless effort to prevent the petitioner from obtaining information and documents, even of the most basic kind."

Doron Ofer is also attacking the transaction that Leora is seeking to obtain a salary from Melisron, where she serves as chairwoman in a 75% position, of NIS 187,500 a month, gross, amounting to NIS 2.25 million a year.

Doron and Leora have been in a state of cold war since their father's death. He left two wills: the first divided his shares in Ofer Investments equally between the two children; the second gave all his shares to Leora. Last month, Doron sued for half of Yuli Ofer's shares in the company, on the grounds that the second (and last) will was invalid, and that the court should honor the first will.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 2, 2012

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012

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