Israeli shareholders holding an aggregate of over 8% of the shares in shipping line ZIM Integrated Shipping Services (NYSE: ZIM) seek to appoint three directors to the company’s board. In advance of the shareholders meeting due to be held next month, at which eight directors will stand for reelection, the shareholders seek to put forward three candidates of their own: Dr. Keren Bar-Hava CPA, Ron Hadassi, and Ran Gritzerstein.
The letter to the board (which is headed by Yair Seroussi) was sent on behalf of the shareholder group by Adv. Ophir Naor, who is himself a shareholder in ZIM. Among the shareholders in the group are More Provident Funds and Pension, Reading Capital, and Sparta 24.
In the letter, the shareholders point out that three of the directors of ZIM were appointed by the previous controlling shareholder. Kenon Holdings (TASE: KEN; NYSE: KEN), controlled by Idan Ofer, exited its investment in ZIM last year, after a long period of control in the company. In recent months, there have been reports that ZIM CEO Eliyahu (Eli) Glickman was examining the possibility of acquiring control of the company and was putting together a consortium to that end. The reports have not been denied.
In the letter, the shareholders’ state that they believe that changing the composition of the board will “assist in maintaining and serving the good of all the shareholders in the company, including through actions to improve it and bring value to the shareholders and to narrow the continuing, extraordinary gap between the company’s asset value, shareholders’ equity, and cash balance on the one hand, and the market value of its shares on the other.” ZIM has a market cap on the New York Stock Exchange of $1.9 billion, while at the end of the first half year it had cash of $2.9 billion.
ZIM has not so far issued an updated announcement of the shareholders meeting to include the shareholder group’s new candidates for the board.
A distorted and illogical situation
Adv. Naor said, “This is an important collective move by minority shareholders in ZIM to replace three directors, a group of institutional and private shareholders operating in an activist and important way to prevent a major distortion that has been taking place at ZIM for some time.” He said that ZIM had over $2.8 billion cash, far above its market cap, “and that is if one completely ignores the rest of its assets and the profits from its operations that are themselves worth billions more. This is a distorted and illogical situation that stems from fears and rumors that have not been denied that the company’s management wants to take advantage of the cash and the absence of a controlling shareholder to carry out a financial move while securing shares and jobs for themselves at the public’s expense.
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“The group of shareholders that I represent, which is in contact with additional shareholders, will not allow this distortion,” Naor continued. “We shall remind anyone who has forgotten that the company has owners, and that unless they act as they are obliged to, they will simply be replaced. Managers who forget that their task is to manage and not to organize deals for themselves will discover that the various shareholders will not allow it. Institutions in Israel have demonstrated that even in a company with no controlling core they are capable of operating in an activist fashion within their rights as shareholders.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on November 16, 2025.
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