A week before the sale of Tnuva to Apax-Mivtach Shamir is due to close, kibbutz and moshav financial officials are worried: Mivtach Shamir, owned by Meir Shamir, has still not presented bank guarantees for the put options granted to shareholders who chose to keep Tnuva shares.

The options enable holders to sell their shares to Mivtach Shamir at the current deal price for a period of 3 years.

Under the agreement, Mivtach Shamir is to provide the remaining shareholders with a $250 million bank guarantee to ensure the options' value. Twenty-five percent of Tnuva's shareholders announced that they would not sell their holdings on the closing date and would accept the options instead; of these, 21.9 percent are held through regional kibbutz financial corporations.