Rami Levy grooming daughter to be next CEO

Rami Levy and daughter Yafit Photo: Jonathan Bloom
Rami Levy and daughter Yafit Photo: Jonathan Bloom

Levy says that his daughter Yafit, currently VP marketing, can manage the business even better than he can.

“I'm grooming my daughter, Yafit Attias Levy, to be my successor,” Rami Levy told “Globes” in a special interview. It is believed that Levy has been moving ahead with this plan for several months,

Attias Levy, 35, is Rami Levy Chain Stores Hashikma Marketing 2006 Ltd. (TASE:RMLI) VP marketing, and Levy is planning to make her the company's next CEO.

He said, "She was not selected because she's my daughter, but because I know her capabilities. I think she can manage this business even better than I can, because the student is better than his teacher. I'll always be there to help her with what she doesn't know.”

When asked whether he had considered a CEO from outside the family, Levy answered, “I decided that when I bring a CEO to replace me, it will be a CEO who knows the business from the bottom up. In our field of business, a CEO who didn't begin from the bottom like Yafit, who hasn't worked here from childhood, will be limited.” He added that he didn't know when he would pass on the reins of management, but that he was convinced of Attias Levy's ability to lead the company, and that he believed in her. “She will definitely be the CEO. I've already been working for 40 years, and a man can't work forever,” he remarked.

Levy referred to his company's annual financial statements and the fact that when they were published, the company's share price plunged 12%, saying, “I think the reports were good. The fact that the share's trading turnovers are large, amounting to tens of millions of shekels, shows that somebody believes in the business, and is buying a lot of shares. We grew a lot over the past five years. We almost doubled the business turnover and the number of customers.”

Commenting on his major rival, Shufersal Ltd. (TASE:SAE), and the statement by its chairperson, Israel Berman to “Globes” last January, when Berman said, “Anyone who sells you chicken for a shekel makes it back from you on other things,' Levy responded, “I suggest that he not take the consumer lightly, but I understand him. Their turnover has remained unchanged for five years; it hasn't increased. They've taken many steps over the past year and done a lot of public relations, but their turnover hasn't changed, while ours has doubled.”

Levy also reveals that when Rami Shavit, the previous owner of New-Pharm, acquired by Shufersal, had to obtain approval for the deal from the Israel Antitrust Authority director general to sell 11 New-Pharm branches is another concern, “Shufersal refused to allow him to sell them to Rami Levy. They didn't want me to enter this field, but I did enter it (by acquiring half of the Good Pharm discount pharmacy chain), and I promise that I will set up a pharmacy company at a cost equal to a quarter of the price and eventually make a bigger profit than that company acquired for hundreds of millions of shekels.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 3, 2018

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018

Rami Levy and daughter Yafit Photo: Jonathan Bloom
Rami Levy and daughter Yafit Photo: Jonathan Bloom
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