Investment Fund green Lantern Continues to expand its holdings in the Israeli food market, and after a foothold in the fields of dairy and ice cream, it also enters the world of meat. The fund, owned by Richie Hunter (formerly Shufersal CEO), Yosef Eliash and Daniel Ben Rei, acquired 51% of the sausage company Kibbutz Yehiam’s delicacies. At the same time, Globes has learned that the fund is currently promoting an IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. MarinaWhich specializes in growing and marketing mushrooms, in which it holds about a third of the shares.
The scope of the deal to acquire control of Yehiam Delicacies gives the kibbutz company from the Western Galilee a value of about NIS 150 million. Yehiam Delicatessen was established in 1969 in the Western Galilee, and manufactures, markets and sells kosher pastrami, salami and sausage delicacies in Israel and abroad.
In order to maintain independence from the kibbutz, along with control over decisions and results, a managerial separation was made as early as 1993, and to ensure independence and independence, a separate board of directors was established for the plant, while maintaining an external chairman and professional directors.
Currently, more than 20% of the company’s products are exported by sea to strictly kosher and kosher markets in the United States, and to Europe – France, England, Italy and Hungary under various brands. York, and in 2020 the company also began selling the products in a variety of national chains across the US.
According to Yochai Ne’eman, CEO of Yehiam Delicatessen, “The kibbutz has decided to find a strategic partner who together will accelerate the company’s growth in the coming years, a partner who can lead rational changes while creating creativity, investment and openness in the joint half. This time, we are convinced that the two are better than the one, and if the two are even greater than the one, we have won. “
On behalf of Green Lantern, the investment was led by the three partners, who stated: “We have five investment principles and they are: a popular brand for consumers, a leading company in its field, a good level of profitability, good and fair partners and growth potential – and Yehiam Delicacies meets them all.”
Marina’s value is climbing steadily
Simultaneously with the acquisition of control of Yehiam Delicacies, the issuance of another holding in the portfolio of Green Lantern, the mushroom company Marina, is being examined, according to a value range that may be NIS 400-500 million. Half of Marina’s shares have changed hands between three investment funds in the past decade, each time at a higher value.
The marina was founded by Remo Ben-Shoshan in the early 1980s, when the company engaged in local distribution activities of fresh mushrooms from local growers in Moshav Hosen and Meona in the northern Western Galilee. Since then, Marina has developed, and according to its home site, it owns facilities for the production of mushroom growing medium, mushroom growing farms, advanced packing houses and various houses for growing various leafy vegetables. The company has about 50 trucks that provide a variety of over 350 agricultural products daily to over 1,200 points of sale.
In November 2020, Green Lantern acquired about 33.5% of Marina shares from the Sky Fund as part of a transaction in which Discount Capital, the real investment arm of Discount Bank, which purchased about 16.5% of the shares, also took part – for a total of NIS 150 million.
This was the third time that half of Marina’s shares changed hands (50% always remained in the hands of founder Ben-Shoshan. To the Sky Fund at a value of NIS 220 million and at the end of 2020, in the acquisition of Green Lantern and Discount, the value was already about NIS 300 million.
Richie Hunter, Founder of the Private Equity Green Lantern Investment Fund / Photo: Jonathan Bloom
Collaboration with Discount also at Gad Dairies
The investment in Marina Mushrooms is not the first collaboration between Green Lantern and Discount. At the end of 2018, the private investment fund sold 20% of its shares in Gad Dairies to Discount Capital, which is owned by Discount Bank and managed by Hila Chimi. The transaction reflected a company value of NIS 310 million for Gad Dairies, after Green Lantern acquired half of Gad’s holdings three years later, at a value of NIS 200 million. In August of that year (2018), Green Lantern acquired control of Feldman Ice Cream in a transaction that reflected a value of NIS 65 million for the company, with Discount Capital acquiring 19% of the holdings.
The cooperation between the parties began outside the food industry, when at the end of 2017 Discount Underwriting led the issuance of the Holmes Place fitness club chain, in which Green Lantern has owned since investing in the company in 2014. Today, the fund owns 22.3% of Holmes Place, with a current value of 79 NIS 1 million – more than twice the amount she invested in the purchase. Holmes Place, one of the main stock market victims of the Corona crisis, has provided a negligible return since its issuance, and it is currently traded at a market value of about NIS 360 million.
Along with its holdings in Gad Dairies and Feldman Ice Cream, Green Lantern has also invested in the French bakery company and even in the Super Kopix supermarket chain. In 2020, 70% of the French pastry, which produces breads and pastries, are marketed, marketed mainly to the institutional market. The founders of the company, founded in 1998, hold the remaining 30%, and they run its operations. In 2016, Green Lantern acquired 50% of Super Kopix from Avi Katz. Two years later, it sold its share to Rami Levy, as part of its takeover of the Kopix network.