Delek Real Estate of the Tshuva group is about to purchase the Sirkin Mall in Petah Tikva from Yaakov Kaufman for $20 million. The contract will apparently be signed in a few days. Delek Real Estate will acquire the mall by itself, without partners, after Azorim Properties, which was to have been a 50% partner in the deal, decided to back out.
The price that Delek Real Estate will pay is 10% lower than the price mentioned during the negotiations between the sellers and Delek and Azorim - $22 million. The lower price is apparently due to the failure of the owners to find other buyers. The mall has 10,000 sq.m. of almost fully occupied income-producing floor space, plus additional accompanying spaces.
The Sirkin Mall is owned by the Yaakov Kaufman company, which is owned as follows: Yuval Kaufman of Canada (45%), the Ted Liebfeld company (45%), and Olympia Real Estate (10%), owned by Oscar Katznelson of Petah Tikva and Alexander Gurevitz of Bat Yam.
On June 23, Liebfeld's shares in the Kaufman were placed in lien to the foreign investment company Candeberry. On June 20, three days earlier, two plots in the mall site were placed in lien to the same company, in the form of a mortgage. Discount Bank received a lien in 1995 on the same plots, and others as well in the mall site, as part of the financial coverage for construction of the mall.
As published in "Globes", Lev Consultants applied to the Beersheva District Court for a liquidation order against the Kaufman company. The request for liquidation claimed, among other things, a debt of NIS 120 million, mostly to Discount Bank, NIS 73 million of which was for the Sirkin Mall. Lev financed, among other things, Kaufman's construction in Elad.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on November 28, 1999