Delek Real Estate Ltd., controlled by Yithzak Tshuva, has closed down and today delisted from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), seven years after its IPO. Sources inform ''Globes'' that the company will fire most of its 42 employees in the coming weeks. Eran Meital, the CEO for the past three years, will oversee the measures. The company will sell its remaining assets and vacate its offices in Ramat Gan.
Earlier this week, Delek Real Estate announced the seizure of its main assets, a portfolio of 127 car parks in the UK, and it now has only a few properties left in Western Europe, and two companies in Israel: Elad Residential Ltd., which owns projects in Tel Aviv's Bavli neighborhood and the Bezalal Market; and Carmel Beach Towers in Haifa, owned by a project company.
Delek Real Estate, which made aggressive purchases of properties, mostly in Western Europe, in 2003-07, reached a peak market cap of NIS 4.3 billion. But the economic crisis that began in late 2008 affect the valuations of its assets, and the company's high leverage taken to buy them brought it down, ultimately resulting in a debt settlement with the bondholders, which included a NIS 1.4 billion write-off, amounting to 65% of the adjusted debt.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 16, 2012
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