The share price of real estate company Shikun & Binui Holdings Ltd. (TASE: SKBN) is down more than 15% on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, following yesterday's news that the company's CEO Eyal Lapidot would be dismissed. This morning, the company issued a statement saying that at a meeting of the board of directors held yesterday it was decided to summon Lapidot for a pre-dismissal hearing, because of differences of opinion about his performance.
The statement continued that if the parties reach understandings, the hearing procedure will be rendered unnecessary.
The move to oust Lapidot comes against a background of disagreements between him and Shikun & Binui controlling shareholder Naty Saidoff. Saidoff was apparently displeased with Lapidot's involvement in the corporate governance affair at Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. (TASE: CLIS) unit Clal Insurance Company. Shareholders in Clal Insurance, Lapidot among them, are in the eye of the storm after the attempt to dismiss Clal Insurance Company CEO Yoram Naveh by the company's chairman Dan Naveh drew claims of supposedly problematic conduct by the main shareholders in the parent company, among them Alfred Akirov, Eyal Lapidot, and Nir Arkin. According to Yoram Naveh, Lapidot and Akirov sought to use him to promote extraneous business interests, and when they did not succeed, pressured Dan Naveh to dismiss him, joined by Arkin. On the instructions of the regulator, the audit committee of the board of Clal Insurance Company appointed an external examiner, Yoran Danziger, to investigate the circumstances that led to the move and the accusations by the sides. The regulator, Moshe Bareket, head of the Capital Markets, Isurance and Savings Authority, recently rejected Lapidot's request to be appointed a director of Clal Insurance.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 17, 2020
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