Danya Cebus grants CEO a bonus

Danya Cebus CEO Ronen Ginsburg will be getting a bonus of NIS 250,000 for 2009, the company said.

The announcement comes a few days after Africa Israel Investments, its parent company, said it will give its own executives and those of certain subsidiaries bonuses totaling NIS 7 million for the year.

But it isn't a done deal: Ometz, a good-government group, is crying foul.

Why the bonus? Under Ginsburg's stewardship, the company ended "dozens of financial disputes" with its suppliers and partners and settled its spat with the state over the construction of Route 431. It also finished building the Cotroceni mall, the company added.

Ometz objects

But the fat watchdog hasn't sung yet. Ometz (a Hebrew acronym for Citizens for Good Government and Legal and Social Justice ) has written to the chairman of the Israel Securities Authority, Zohar Goshen, bitterly protesting Africa Israel's "inexplicable" and "infuriating" intention to pay bonuses at all.

"Disgracefully, these bonuses are being paid not because of good performance, growth or profit, as is the norm, since in the last three years, Africa Israel has lost more than NIS 5 billion," wrote Ometz chairman Arye Avneri. "It's for [these executives'] contribution to the company's debt arrangement."

Last year, Africa Israel announced that it had the wherewithal to meet liabilities for the next two years, but would be unable to meet them thereafter.

The group, controlled by real estate and diamonds magnate Lev Leviev, spent months hashing out a debt arrangement with creditors, including the banks - which were owed about NIS 500 million - and bondholders, who were owed NIS 7.5 billion.

"Regrettably, the institutional investors representing the bondholders, who lost money, fell down on the job," Avneri continued in his letter to Goshen, because they neglected to include a mechanism to halt bonuses in the debt arrangement.

"If the company's controlling shareholder, Lev Leviev, insists on paying the bonuses, he should be ordered to do so from his own money," he wrote.

Avneri ended by asking the watchdog to act to prevent the company from paying the bonuses using "public money."