Markets in Brief

Delek Real Estate sells Toronto building to pay off bondholders

Delek Real Estate, another company working out how to repay frustrated bondholders, is continuing to sell off assets to achieve that very end and yesterday announced a deal to sell a building on Yonge Street, Toronto, for 108 million Canadian dollars. The asset, owned by subsidiary Delek Global Real Estate, had been booked at a value of C$89 million, which means its value increased - but there was an outstanding loan taken to buy it in the first place, totaling C$65 million. (Vadim Sviderski )

Ampal-American delays Colombia ethanol project

Yossi Maiman's Ampal - American Israel Corporation is postponing its sugarcane ethanol project in Colombia, the company said Friday. Ampal has a 25% stake in the project, while Maiman's private company Merhav has 75%. The project, which Maiman has been planning for four years, involves growing sugarcane on some 100,000 dunams of land and making ethanol from it in an adjacent plant, at a total investment of about $280 million. At the start of the year, Ampal agreed to borrow $223 million from the SBCE, the Brazilian Export Credit Insurance Agency, to buy equipment for the project from the Brazilian ethanol company Uni-Systems. Ampal meant to make the first withdrawal of money by year-end 2011, and was supposed to increase its stake in the project to 50%. Now it's put off all that and has extended the option to year-end 2012. (Avi Bar-Eli )

Phoenix CEO mounting management buyout

Phoenix CEO Eyal Lapidot is putting together a group of investors to buy the controlling interest in the insurance company from its parent, Yitzhak Tshuva's Delek Group. Lapidot has worked for Delek for six years, the last two and a half at Phoenix. His move is reminiscent of the management buyout effected by Gil Agmon at another group company, Delek Automotive. Agmon, chief executive of the company, bought 22% of the company and became the controlling shareholder. In Lapidot's case, he may need to bring foreign investors on board, say industry observers. Or he might team up with Jacob Shachar, co-owner of Mayer's Cars and Trucks, which owns 23% of Phoenix. Yes, it's the same Shachar who used to co-own Phoenix with his brother-in-law Israel Kass. Another possible investor is media baron Haim Saban. (Noam Bar and Michael Rochvarger )

	Eyal Lapidot
	Photo by: Ofer Vaknin