The chairman of the Ashdod Port Board of Directors, Orna, was invited to Koor, today passed a decision on the company’s board of directors to launch a hearing ahead of the removal of the company’s CEO Moshe (Shiko) Jeanne. Invited by Koor has received approval to hire external legal advice to the board of directors in the opinion of the director of the new Companies Authority, Michal Rosenbaum.
Michal Rosenbaum was appointed about a month and a half ago by Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman to the position of director of the Companies Authority. The Companies Authority has functioned without a permanent director for more than a year since the previous director, Yanki Quint, was appointed director of the Israel Land Authority. The port of Ashdod is the largest port in the country and most of the goods that arrive in Israel pass through it. 55 ships are currently waiting in traffic jams outside the Israeli ports, 23 of them outside the port of Ashdod.
The struggle between the chairman of the port board, Orna, was first invited to the port director Moshe (Shiko) Jeanne is not new, but it has intensified recently and the renewal of this struggle is attributed, among other things, to the replacement of management in the membership authority. About two weeks ago, the chairman of the board of directors of the Port of Ashdod sent a scathing letter to the company’s CEO in which she blamed him for the port’s poor handling of the ship’s traffic jam. Candidacy first published in Calcalist.
Xana did not remain obligated, and responded to her with the letter that “unfortunately, you again choose to contact me in an official letter, strangely and without any prior conversation, in so-called professional questions, despite phone updates, meetings and weekly updates we hold, in which you are updated in detail and in writing, all issues That you mention in your letter. ” He further wrote, that “the port broke almost all unloading and loading records in 2021 and displayed a line of operating profit that was never recorded in it” and that “your desire to present managerial or operational problems in the port is wrong and misleading, these achievements we do as you know well without a creditor” To finance, without a VP of operations and without a chief of staff and a number of other standard holders for whom we are awaiting approval of the publication of their positions from the board of directors. “
In the past, the Companies Authority and the Ministry of Finance did not support the position of the board of directors. “About four months ago, the finance director and deputy director of the Companies Authority, Ram Blinkov, sent a letter to the chairman of the Ashdod Port Board, Orna Hozman-Bechor, in which he lamented the board’s conduct, claiming that it leads to damage to the company’s conduct and performance.” And given the company’s vital role – also in the Israeli economy as a whole. ”
Blinkov’s letter addressed two key aspects related to the port board’s performance: delay in appointing senior officials and fears of harming the company’s attorney general. The fact that the company’s internal legal advisor is a “gatekeeper in charge of maintaining the company’s proper operations” and that the desire to hire external consultants is contrary to the Companies Authority’s position and the provisions of proper corporate governance and constitutes a “blatant step on a foreign field.
About a month and a half ago, it was revealed in “Calcalist” that the director general of the port, Jeanne, was trying to run for the position of director general of the Israel Electric Corporation. Jeanne took over as CEO of the Port of Ashdod in March 2020 and was originally considered the preferred candidate for the chairman of the port, Orna Hozman-Bechor. Jeanne took office after Huzman-Bechor fired the previous CEO, Itzik Blumenthal, today the CEO of the Israel Ports Company.
