Hot passion and cold cash. Many a brew cooking up, these sultry summer days, will still be bubbling when everyone returns from vacation and the air is cooler.
Stanley and Benny
Two years after jumping aboard the gaily festooned
Benny Gaon bandwagon, Stanley Gold realised he had come too late. Just in time for the last go-round. Maybe. And he is mad. He is furious with Gaon who failed to deliver on his promise of tremendous monopolistic profits several years into the future.
Koor’s big profit sources always lay in the fun and games Telrad and Tadiran were having in Bezeq, and the voluminous cement sales to Israel and the Territories. Both began to be eroded before Gold ever arrived on the scene. This did not show, however, in the company’s reports, which were still celebratory.
To perceive that this was the beginning of the end, one had to live here. Gaon lives here. Stanley Gold does not. Benny Gaon was his antennae.
The Tadiran and Telrad balance sheets may have made merry over Bezeq, but the end was nigh. Bezeq’s monopoly began to be eroded, although the replenishment plan was years off completion; and reporting requirements and journalistic nit-picking exposed the ancient fact that Koor subsidiaries Tadiran and Telrad had been closing sales deals with the managers of Bezeq without bothering about invitations to tender and at grotesquely overblown prices. Stanley Gold came to Koor just as dessert was about to be served at the Bezeq feast.
The power erosion made inroads also into the cement monopoly. Here, the partying is still in progress, but monetary calculations are in process of being exposed, and price control is gaining sophistication. Restraint of trade control is being tightened. Direct and indirect profitability will progressively shrink. Stanley Gold is still raking in Nesher’s enormous profits. But they too will run dry, a fact of which he is well aware.
Apart from those two, and apart from the formidable, well-oiled public relations system which Gaon is so brilliantly adept at handling, Koor hasn’t much to offer in the way of bargains. Nor, more importantly, does it offer any crazy growth potential. Candidates for dismissal have all been dismissed and all things bright and marketable have gone on the market.
There is another problem. Gold lives in the US, which puts no faith in investment firms. "Liquidation" is America’s current watchword, and that is what Stanley Gold is looking to do here. If the capital market continues in its present fine fettle, he feels, Gaon will not be slow on the uptake. In that case, money raised will pour into the group. He will see not a penny of it. So Gold & Co. prefer to cut loose, to hold share packages in every company, to take advantage of the market, to sell or issue, to take the money and run.
Stanley, Benny and Amiram
How will Benny Gaon bounce back from the tremendous drubbing his no less tremendous ego has taken? This wasn’t just any old thwacking, but a thorough going-over at the hands of his "friend and partner", Stanley Gold. Dear Stanley went behind Gaon’s back to Amiram Sivan, and together they plotted the great man’s downfall.
Stanley Gold was undoubtedly aware of the disaffection, strain, rivalry and mutual ill-wishing in relations between Amiram and Benny. In short, they can’t stand one another. Stanley and Amiram talked, and those within eavesdropping distance conjured up rosy visions of this cold, correct twosome, gruesomely relishing the knock-out they had delivered to Benny Gaon.
A few hours later, Gaon was back on his feet again.
All that glitters, including Stanley, is clearly not gold. Stanley Gold, it transpires, is just a little cog-wheel in the great engine of Roy Disney, a "third cousin twice removed" of Walt Disney. It became apparent that Stanley Gold, meaning the Shamrock outfit he heads, did not, itself, acquire Koor at all, but was merely a part of the Trefoil group, hardly mentioned at the time the investment was made. People also recalled that Gold, Israel’s biggest investor (until Shoul Eisenberg bought Israel Chemicals), hadn’t put any money of his own here. He purchased Israel’s biggest industrial concern on credit, taking, for example, a big loan (only discovered in the issuance prospectus), from Bank Hapoalim and maybe other loans as well.
Turned out that he, Stanley Gold, was altogether a nifty speculator, buying and selling shares, such as Dor Energy, Tel Ad, Matav, and posing as a clever strategic investor, with a warm Jewish heart and broad horizons, who dreamed of a new Middle East and planned his moves years in advance.
Another discovery was that Stanley Gold does not qualify for the title of distinguished manager. Wall Street rates him, the man who bought and managed LA Gear, as a managerial flop. He failed to identify and retain the company’s key personnel and, in the United States, an application for legal action is pending even now, even against Stanley Gold.
All these tasty morsels were fed to the public, strange to say, within hours after the Gold-Sivan meeting was exposed.
These were nothing but the opening skirmishes. The dirty, spin-off era battles of Moshe Zanbar, Shlomo Grofman and Eitan Raf are going to look like a barn dance compared to what we are in for.
Amiram Sivan, who definitely expects to continue running the bank even after it is sold, will refrain, for this present, verge-of-purchasing moment, from making any significant moves. The Arison group too, has already sent out signals: Bank Hapoalim had best not make any dramatic decisions, but should await the arrival of the new owners. Until then, he will enjoy watching Benny Gaon sweat and squirm.
Gold will come back talking spin-off to the purchaser, Arison or Keil. What is sauce for Stanley is in all probability also sauce for Ted or Jeffrey, who will want to recoup their investment as fast as possible. Three brave soldiers from the same village. The war they are about to snatch away from and return to Benny Gaon will keep the home fires burning this autumn.
Erwin and Liz
How are the Eisenbergs disporting themselves this summer season? Leah and her daughters in one corner, ranged against Erwin and Yigal Dimant in the other, are all busy frantically scooping up as much dirt as possible on one another. All is fair in this war, and many are waxing fat on it.
Erwin is already in possession of one piece of ammunition against his sisters, that he has yet to fire: the late Shoul Eisenberg made it a regular habit to send his daughters tens of thousands of dollars monthly, from his foreign accounts. The men-folk allege that the sisters should have paid income tax on these moneys, which were transferred as management fees or for business activity, but failed to do so.
The distaff side queries sweetly "Where is Erwin?" and wants to know what he is doing in the world. They suspect his activity relates to his father’s personal bank accounts. The late Shoul Eisenberg, it seems, conducted all his monetary transactions through private accounts. The women claim that the gentlemanly Erwin, loath to declare overt, all-out war on his mother and sisters, is quietly ferreting out those accounts, with the aid of a few of his father’s cronies, especially Linda Leung, his right hand in recent years.
If Erwin manages to gain control of these personal accounts, they reckon, all the rest will become small change. If that happens, he will not mind sacrificing the Israel Corporation to the women.
Last weekend, Liz Hardy hit the headlines with the declaration that "I’ll tell you the truth, my father’s death remains a mystery to me, to this day I do not know exactly what happened to him, and this saddens me, and I cannot shake off the thought. Not even his wedding ring was found. I discussed this with my sister Esther (the wholly disinherited Zochovitzki, SKL). I thought of requesting a post mortem, just so as to be able to take my mind off it".
What is known is that Shoul Eisenberg met his death in his hotel room in China, while dictating letters to his secretary. It is also known that notice of his death was first served on Erwin. Erwin, having notified those whom he saw fit to notify, went to China, returning next day with his father’s body. What does Hardy’s mean? What message is she trying to get across? What is she hinting at? What is going to be made of these veiled allusions? Wait for the end of the summer and see.
Eitan, Leon
The Wertheimers are locking horns with the Recanatis. More precisely, Stef and Eitan Wertheimer of Iscar, versus Leon Recanati and Eli Cohen of IDB. Money is the name of the game. You buy me, I buy you, how much money will change hands, and who will be the first to blink.
Once this was an idyllic partnership. IDB and Discount investments, with their financial strength, image and management policy, made a tremendous contribution to Iscar’s establishment and consolidation. The latter reciprocated by means of its generous and substantial contribution to the balance sheets of IDB and Discount Investments.
Time passed. The unsentimental, coldly calculating Wertheimer thought the time had come to stop sharing the profits. His son thought so too.
Wertheimer decided to take advantage of the requirement posed by the Securities Authority for his balance sheets to be detailed within those of Discount. Publicity-shy as he is, he wanted out. Which is to say: he wanted to purchase the Iscar shares held by Discount Investments. With the intention of increasing the pressure and jacking up the price, the Wertheimer sons bought IDB shares, arriving at a holding of slightly more than 15%.
The Recanatis, disappointed and feeling betrayed, realised this was the beginning of the end of the relationship and decided to sell dearly. Very dearly. Elegant and understated, they never blinked even as the game became more and more aggressive.
Stef Wertheimer, who likes to have everything handed to him on a silver salver (while shouting that he hates to be on the receiving end) started jabbing. Tales abounded of conflict of interests, directorial appointments, lack of directorial qualification, of questions, enquiries and general goings-on.
Eitan Wertheimer, recently unable to prevent a shareholders’ meeting from being held, announced that there would be one more such meeting. As the heat of summer mounts, Wertheimer will step up the pressure, while the Recanatis, in the other corner, polish up their icy business demeanour. They will not be drawn into a bout of fisticuffs. The disquiet, the publicity and the exposure eschewed by both parties will mount steadily, culminating towards autumn. First to blink will be the loser. Money. Nothing but money.