At a meeting of Bank Leumi's board of directors, due to take place next week, a number of directors are expected to call upon the bank’s Chairman, Eitan Raf, and General Manager Galia Maor, to order the convening of a general meeting of Africa Israel’s shareholders. The directors seek, at that meeting, to table a draft resolution whereby Africa Israel will be split into two companies: insurance holdings, and real estate and hotel holdings.
The directors maintain that they bear personal responsibility for compliance with the law requiring the banks to scale down their non-financial holdings to 25%; and they are liable to be prosecuted if this is not done within the time limit prescribed by the law.
However, if, before the board of directors convenes, agreement is reached between the bank’s management and Shlomo Grofman, general manager of Africa Israel and Chairman of Migdal, as regards the split, or as regards Grofman’s future in the group, then the matter will not be tabled for discussion at the forthcoming meeting.
This morning (Monday), an advertisement in support of Grofman was published by the employees and managers of Africa Israel, against a background of rumours recently published that the Bank Leumi board of directors intends to bring about his dismissal. An Africa Israel spokesman referred “Globes” to Bank Leumi on this issue, but the bank declined to comment. Grofman himself refused to answer questions.