Today (Monday) a hearing will take place in the US on emergency funding for summer camps company Simad Holdings (TASE: SIMD). The company, owned by brothers Michael and David Shabsels, raised bond debt of NIS 620 million on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, but collapsed last month after it was discovered that the owners had apparently withdrawn tens of millions of dollars from it to cover personal debts.
The bondholders now seek to extend an emergency loan in the form of DIP (debtor-in-possession) financing amounting to $20 million, together with Klirmark Capital, which will provide a further $60 million. The loan is short-term, for a few months only, at an interest rate estimated to be in the low double-digits, and is intended to salvage the company’s summer camps activity. The bondholders will shortly vote on the loan and on whether to operate the sixteen summer camps mortgaged to them by Simad, or the company’s entire summer camps activity, consisting of thirty camps, in order to preserve the company’s reputation as a functioning business.
The chief restructuring officer (CRO) appointed by Simad’s creditors, Assaf Ravid, informed the creditors at a meeting last week that financing was urgently required in order to save the summer season and operate the camps for children that the company runs on the West Coast of the US. The timetable is pressing, and is considered almost impossible by the standards of US debt settlements. The financing needs to be provided to Simad not later than this Friday (June 26), Ravid explained to the creditors.
According to the company, the loan from Klirmark will be arranged between the bondholders’ trustee and Simad itself. A DIP loan is a loan extended to rescue a company in Chapter 11 proceedings in the US to protect it from its creditors. Under the terms of the loan provided to Simad Holdings, the total amount is $220 million. Of that, $80 million, as mentioned, will be provided in cash to save the company’s business, while the remaining $160 million is in effect a roll-up of the bond debt, and will be paid to the creditors proportionately to their holdings in the company’s bonds in Tel Aviv.
Market sources familiar with the company say that an attempt is being made to apply the lessons of previous collapses of BVI (British Virgin Islands-registered) companies, and to act swiftly to maintain the company’s activity in order to extract maximum value, so as to assist in repaying creditors. The problem with Simad is that it Is not known for how many creditors the Shabsels brothers managed to mortgage parts of Simad’s business, and that is the most significant element in understanding the true value of the company, and will presumably be clarified in the Chapter 11 proceedings in the US.
Klirmark Capital is an investment firm that specializes in saving companies that have got into financial difficulties. In the past it has raised billions of shekels from Israeli financial institutions.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 22, 2026.
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