New details about the investigation that shakes Psagot: mInformation received by Globes indicates that Chairman Rani Zim is suspected of passing inside information to a senior official at the Airports Authority, whose name is still prohibited from publication, and that she made purchases before substantial reports. Alongside Chairman Zim, Psagot CEO Yaniv Bender was also questioned, as well as her Former senior official at the Airports Authority.
● Psagot’s troubles: falling stock, burdensome debt and now also an investigation Surgery
According to the information obtained by Globes, Zim is suspected of securities offenses as well as fraud and breach of trust in a corporation and a fraudulent offense.
It should be appreciated that Zim claimed in his investigation, as many people investigated in these crimes claim, that he warned the same senior woman, who later also served as a director of Psagot, about the prohibition of using inside information, and that if she actually did use inside information, then it was her snooping and independent detective work, without Active involvement of Zim.
Meanwhile, it should be noted that Zim is also a 50% partner in the franchise to operate duty-free stores of electrical and electronic products in Bulgaria (partnership with Electra Consumer Products).
Yesterday (Wednesday), the investment house announced that Securities Authority investigators conducted a search of Psagot’s offices on Tuesday, as part of an investigation of officials regarding the suspected use of insider information. We also informed Psagot that, to the best of their knowledge, at this stage there are no suspicions against the company.
With the publication of the report yesterday, the shares fell peaks and the group’s market value dropped to only about NIS 230 million – a 40% drop in the past year.
Acquired Psagot in 2021
Rani Zim, who owns 61.5% of the shares of Psagot Finance Group, also serves as the chairman of the group. The CEO of Psagot Group is Yaniv Bender, who owns about 10% of the public company’s shares.
Zim acquired control of Psagot in May 2021 from Altshuler Shaham in exchange for NIS 405 million, through the stock exchange company Valio Capital, which later changed its name to Psagot Finance Group.
Last week, in response to the publication in the media, Psagot confirmed that it had received an offer from the Phoenix insurance company to purchase the entire activity of its trust funds and portfolio management, which reflected a value of approximately NIS 480-550 million for this activity. Psagot claimed in the report that they rejected the proposal, and clarified that it was given before a preliminary economic examination of the activity that is the subject of the proposal. “This offer was rejected by the company due to strategic, commercial and regulatory considerations. Following this, the parties are conducting negotiations on a different transaction outline,” they explained in Psagot.
It seems that the burden of the debt taken in the purchase of the investment house is weighing on the public company, and against the background of the rising interest rate environment, Zim is trying to reduce the leverage he took by bringing in partners to the company.
The Psagot Group’s balance sheet at the end of last September included liabilities of more than NIS 1 billion, compared to capital of NIS 231 million. Among other things, Psagot Finance has three series of bonds with a total amount of nearly NIS 300 million, which are traded in the institutional sequence system, one of them with a high yield of 9%.
Zim completed the purchase of Psagot in August 2021, three months after the agreement with Altshuler Shaham, when, as mentioned, he paid an amount of NIS 405 million for the fund activities, investment portfolios and brokerage of the investment house – a purchase that was financed for the most part with a bank loan of about a quarter of a billion NIS from Bank Mizrahi Tefahot.
The Psagot Finance Group presented in the third quarter of 2022 revenues of NIS 95 million and a net profit of NIS 2.1 million. As of today, the company manages mutual fund assets amounting to NIS 46 billion, and it ended the year in this activity with a positive fundraising of NIS 2.5 billion, mainly thanks to fundraising in financial funds, which have become a hit in recent months following the rise in interest rates and being a substitute for bank deposits.
Rani Zim was first exposed to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2010, when, together with his brother Adi, he worked to issue the discount food retail chain “Almost Free”. Only two years later, the two completed their major exit, which they carried out in 2012, with the sale of “Almost Free” to the competing chain Yenat Beitan, in a deal that yielded them a return of approximately NIS 350 million (and completed their capital accumulation of approximately NIS 420 million since The issue – by selling shares, salary and dividends).
After the two parted ways, today Rani Zim operates mainly in the fields of real estate and finance. In addition to controlling Psagot, he also owns the company Rani Zim Shopping Centers, which operates in the peripheral cities and the Arab sector, and trades at a value of about half a billion shekels, after the company’s stock fell by more than 50 % in the last year.
Response: “Old events that do not concern Psagot activity”
Attorney Eran Shaham-Shavit from the Belter Gut Aloni office, representing the officers in Psagot, said on their behalf: “To the best of our understanding, these are old events that do not in any way relate to the activities of the Psagot Investment House. All actions carried out by my securities attorneys were carried out legally and with close legal supervision.
“Accordingly, we are convinced that when the investigative authority completes its investigation, it will become clear that my clients acted lawfully, and that Ravav did not adhere to them. I will add that the office bearers cooperated in the investigation and were released to their homes at the end of their investigation, without any restrictions regarding their roles in public society.”
*** The innocence clause: Rani Zim, Yaniv Bender and others involved in the case are only suspects/investigators, they have not been convicted of committing a crime, and they have the presumption of innocence.