The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) has begun searching for a new CEO to replace Yossi Beinart, who today announced his resignation because of a serious disease. The TASE board of directors will form a committee to select a new CEO. Beinart has been sick leave since late June. Beinart notified TASE chairman Amnon Neubach of his intention to resign for health reasons.
Even before Beinart's health deteriorated, there were serious disputes between him and Neubach, the driving force promoting the selection committee. As far as is known, the TASE has already begun the examination of possible candidates for TASE CEO, using an external party for this purpose.
Despite the TASE board's promotion of a selection committee, however, the decisive role in choosing the next CEO is likely to belong to the man responsible for Beinart's selection - Israel Securities Authority chairman Prof. Shmuel Hauser. TASE deputy CEO and COO Gal Landau-Yaari is temporarily filling in for Beinart.
The effort to find a replacement for Beinart is taking place at an especially challenging time for the TASE, with an unprecedented crisis in its business situation and a severe conflict between management and the workers.
Neubach and Beinart were appointed two and a half years ago in place of Esther Levanon and Sam Bronfeld, who were dismissed by Hauser in order to move the TASE in a new direction. Up until now, however, the TASE has had difficulty making a change, and Hauser now hopes that change will come with a restructuring of TASE ownership and turning it into a private company.
The legal framework for such a measure is currently in the hands of the Knesset, and has not been completed. Furthermore, no agreement has been reached with the TASE workers about their share in the new TASE company when it is formed. The dispute with the workers, which includes sanctions, also involves the new work agreement, about which the parties have yet to agree.
It was learned yesterday that the TASE is expected to finish 2016 with a NIS 9.75 million loss, despite previous expectations in the 2016 budget targets of a NIS 6.5 million profit - a NIS 16.3 million gap between the plan and the performance, among other things due to failure to meet the revenue target, mostly as a result of the continued decline in trading in shares and convertibles, STLs and derivatives.
The TASE now projects NIS 242.5 million in revenue in 2016, compared with its NIS 265.2 million budgetary target. Incidentally, the TASE had an even bigger loss in 2013 than its projected one this year, but that resulted from a large accounting write-off caused by the construction of its current luxurious premises.
The TASE bases this estimate on the results of the first eight months of the year and the results of the dispute with the workers. TASE executives met at the beginning of September with the workers' representatives and Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) chairman Avi Nissenkorn.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 21, 2016
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