MA Industries (Makhteshim Agan) (TASE: MAIN) subsidiary Agan Chemical Manufacturers managing director Abraham Kleiner has written to the company’s employees informing them of likely job losses as a result of the significant worsening of the company’s results. Kleiner issued the letter after Agan Chemical’s workers committee refused, as he saw it, to face the new realities and agree to a cut in salaries in 2006.
“2005 saw a significant drop in company results and over the first nine months of 2006, our profit margin has been hit hard, and now stands at 20%,” wrote Kleiner in his letter to staff. “The future does not look any brighter either and this will obviously not allow the kind of agreements we had in the past. The significance of this, in labor terms, is that we will have to part company, as fairly as possible, with 30 employees whose low output has placed an added burden on our costs.”
In response, Labor MK Shelly Yacimovich wrote to Kleiner drawing his attention to the excessive executive salaries at Agan Chemical and its parent, Maksteshim. “In view of your claim that the company’s largesse has been reduced, I was surprised to learn last week that the new Makteshim chairman Abraham Bigger will earn a monthly salary of NIS 120,000, in addition to NIS 20 million in options, and an annual bonus running into millions. I am also convinced that Mr. Bigger’s output will be a lot lower than that of the employees whose jobs you now seek to cut, since in addition to his job at Makhteshim, he is also serves as chairman at Super-Sol Ltd. (TASE:SAE; OTCBB:SSLTF), and sits on the boards of a number of companies, among them Cellcom Israel Ltd., and Bank Leumi (TASE: LUMI),” she wrote.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 18, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006