Alon Holdings Blue Square - Israel Ltd. (NYSE: BSI; TASE: BSI) CEO and Mega chairman Avigdor Kaplan has apologized after slamming the banks as "garbage" after 10 hours of talks in the Lod District Court yesterday resulted in agreement. Kaplan told "IDF Radio" (Galei Zahal) that the banks were "garbage" and "we will kill them." This morning Kaplan was apologetic and said, "I was speaking after long and exhausting talks and I'm only human. No harm was meant. I'm pleased that ultimately we succeeded in obtaining the support of all our partners and reached a settlement for the recovery of the Mega supermarket chain that will protect the jobs of our 6,000 employees."
A banking source said, "The matter won't influence the talks today. Saving the chain is more important than a slip of the tongue by Mr. Kaplan."
At the demand of the banks, Alon Holdings Blue Square improved its offer, agreeing to inject NIS 160 million into Mega as capital, in addition to providing a NIS 160 million guarantee and line of credit as a loan to the chain, to be repaid to the controlling shareholder from Mega's profits, if any, starting in 2020. This was a significant change from the original offer of only NIS 240 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 15, 2015
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