Securities watchdog raids Delek Real Estate offices

The questions hovering over the sudden resignation of Yaron Oren in October, after just a month as chief executive officer at Delek Real Estate, are multiplying. Last Thursday, Israel Securities Authority investigators raided the Delek Group company's offices, at the Gibor Sport House in Ramat Gan.

Oren, 39, who claimed he realized that he lacked the experience to run a real estate company, was replaced by acting CEO Eran Meital, who had been the company's chairman. Oren had taken over from Ilik Rozanski, who had run the company for eight years before stepping down.

On Thursday the investigators perused documents concerning the company's management, its "profit management," and registration of revenues and costs.

Meital has served as active chairman for a year, and was one of the authors of Delek Real Estate's plan to restructure its assets. The plan included selling more than NIS 1 billion worth of properties in Israel and elsewhere, and rescheduling liabilities.

However, Delek Real Estate has yet to figure out how to repay bondholders and bankers billions of shekels in the next few years. Delek Real Estate's bonds are trading at junk status of more than 30%, indicating some worry about the company's solvency. Its market capitalization has fallen to NIS 868 million.

Delek Real Estate commented that it is cooperating fully with the Israel Securities Authority.