Revealed in Calcalist
Zenalkal Public buys the Golan Heights dairies. As revealed on the “Calcalist” website, Zenalkal submitted the highest offer, and will purchase the company for NIS 33 million. Her offer was NIS 3 million ahead of that of Zvi Williger and the Vilipod company after pricing. Zenalkal will pay an additional NIS 7 million for inventory balances and debts owed to Golan Ramat Dairies customers. Zenalkal’s initial offer was NIS 27 million and Williger’s was NIS 24 million.
“Calcalist” also learned that the person who accompanied Zanalkal in the process was Tnuva’s former CEO Eric Shor, who may also continue to be involved in the dairy’s management. Attorneys Ehud Gindes and Khan Berdichev led the sale.
After deducting the sales expenses and the trustees’ salary, and after repaying a loan taken by the trustees to enable the continuation of the activity, Zenalkal’s creditors are expected to receive approximately NIS 36 million after Passover. The company has one major secured creditor, Bank Hapoalim with a debt of NIS 26 million, and smaller creditors. Dean Marketing of the Fimi Fund and Vikabi Carmel of the Kadama Fund decided not to enter the tender. This brings to an end the procedure in which the dairy went into receivership last November, due to debts of more than NIS 40 million.
Golan Heights Dairies began its journey in 1983, as a joint initiative of Moshav Nov and Tara and Strauss Dairies. Moshav Nov soon ran into financial difficulties and was forced to sell his share to Tnuva. In 2011, the antitrust commissioner at the time, David Gila, demanded from Tenuva to sell its holdings. As a result, Strauss and Tara also sold their share, and their place was taken by the Ortal, Sasa and Ein Zivan kibbutzim, alongside Yuval Eitan, son of the late MK Rafi Eitan (4%). Sasa and Ein Zivan escaped the company by the skin of their teeth, shortly before it collapsed, along with the owner of the Samaria Dairies, which had merged with it half a year earlier.
Golan Heights Dairies, which employs about 100 people, is now formally owned by Kibbutzim Sasa and Ortal (38% each), Ein Zivan (20%) and Yuval Eitan (4%). The dairy merged with Samaria Dairy, in an unsuccessful merger about a year ago, and the owner of Samaria almost immediately sold the proceeds he received in the deal in the form of shares. The same goes for other kibbutzim such as Shamir that held shares.
The company’s difficulties arose because most of its sales (60%) are controlled dairy products such as milk and cream. The dairy purchases 19 million liters per year and markets its products mainly to customers such as Shufersel, Gad and Yohannoff dairies. The milk was marketed by the dairy to Shufersal Veged at prices of NIS 3.8 per liter, which led to a loss of NIS 7 million in 2021, and its inability to repay debts until Bank Hapoalim made the debt available for immediate repayment.
The recovery process led by the trustees was one of the most effective in recent times, especially in light of the high interest rate environment and the effects of the government’s coup d’état on the economy. Attorneys Gindes and Bardichev took out a loan to operate the company and raised the prices by 10%. The two estimated that sales could be doubled to more than 200 million shekels a year while increasing the cheese component in its sales, since it is an unsupervised product that is more profitable than milk and cream.
Zenalkal deals in canned vegetables, and this is its first entry into the milk sector – a field that other food companies such as Tempo have recently entered. The canning sector is suffering from a retreat in the food industry in favor of fresher and healthier food. Zenelkl will try to continue expanding the more profitable cheese sector.
Zenalkal is controlled by Yaakov Sheinfeld (36.85%) and the heirs of Ruth Sassover (24.7%) and trades at a value of NIS 248 million. In 1998, it acquired the production lines and the license to use the Yachin name, and since then the company has been engaged in the production and marketing of food products under the brand. Its equity at the end of June 2022, when its latest reports were published, was NIS 135 million.
Zenalkal ended the first half of 2022 with a profit of NIS 10.7 million, a 22% increase compared to the corresponding period. The company’s revenues were NIS 124.7 million in that period. Last August, the company distributed a dividend of NIS 15 million.