Less than a week before the hearing scheduled on the Tax Authority's application to have Eliezer Fishman declared bankrupt and to appoint a receiver for his assets, set for September 5, Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI), Fishman's second largest creditor, responded at length for the first time today to the application by Bank Hapoalim (TASE: POLI) to appoint its counsel, Adv. Pinhas Rubin from the Gornitzky & Co. law firm, as the receiver of Fishman's assets.
Leumi proposes to the court that it should consider a mechanism of three representatives: Adv. Rubin on behalf of Bank Hapoalim; Adv. Ronen Matry of Matry, Meiri & Co. on behalf of Bank Leumi; and a third lawyer to represent the Tax Authority and creditors owed lesser sums, estimated to amount to hundreds of millions of shekels more.
Bank Leumi claims that the Fishman Group's debts exceed NIS 5 billion, a higher amount than previously estimated. Bank Leumi also specifies for the first time how much of the debt owed by the Fishman Group to it is personally guaranteed by Fishman - NIS 880 million.
This sum becomes almost unimportant given another figure that appears in the bank's submission: declarations by Fishman that his personal assets are worth tens of millions of shekels at most. It is on this figure that Bank Leumi bases its argument that the personal bankruptcy proceeding is secondary to the process of foreclosing the liens on Fishman's companies, which the bank commenced last year.
According to estimates published recently, Fishman's companies owe Bank Leumi NIS 1.7 billion. To this must be added Fishman's personal debt to the Tax Authority, some NIS 200 million, on account of which the Authority commenced bankruptcy proceedings against him; and the largest creditor, Bank Hapoalim, which claims that Fishman's companies owe it NIS 1.8 billion. The Fishman Group also owes money to Mizrahi Tefahot Bank (TASE:MZTF) (NIS 281 million) and to Union Bank of Israel (TASE: UNON) (estimated at NIS 200 million).
Eliezer Fishman is the controlling shareholder in "Globes".
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 30, 2016
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