Arcadi Gaydamak has expanded his efforts toward changing Israeli society by using a businessman’s methods, this time in the foodstuff sector.
The Russian-born Israeli billionaire has purchased a controlling share of the “Tiv Taam” non-kosher supermarket chain and announced he plans to close the business on Shabbat and stop selling pork and other treife (non-kosher) products.
The announcement of the deal, confirmed by Mr. Gaydamak’s spokesman, also came as a bombshell to Israelis who rely on the chain to provide them with pork. It was also a surprise in the business world, since the Tiv Taam supermarket chain was not up for sale.
But Mr. Gaydamak made the chain’s owners an offer they couldn’t refuse. He purchased a 51 percent share of the business for NIS 820 million, approximately 80 percent more than the value of the entire company on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). The company itself was valued at NIS 448 million ($110 million).
The two current partners in the business, Amit Berger and Kobi Tribitch, will retain 13 and 12 percent of the shares, respectively, and will receive $50 million apiece.
The deal itself may be a good investment; at present, the chain has 23 stores and a 2.5 percent market share in food sales, with predicted revenues for 2007 to be NIS 1 billion higher than the figures for 2006. Plans to expand the chain’s market share included increasing the number of stores to 60 by 2009.
Another Building Block to Support a Political Venture
“I believe that in a Jewish state, in which there is a large Muslim minority, selling pork is a provocation,” he told Army Radio in an interview Sunday. Islam, like Judaism, prohibits its adherents from eating pork.
In a later interview on Israel’s Channel 2 TV, Gaydamak reiterated that he plans to pull the non-kosher items off the shelves, thus placing Tiv Taam third among kosher supermarket chains in the country.
The move is guaranteed to build political support among religious Jews who observe the kosher dietary laws, as well as religious Muslims.
Gaydamak has made no secret of his plans to run for mayor of Jerusalem in the next elections. If elected, he has said he plans to appoint an Israeli Arab Deputy Mayor.
A large majority of Russian immigrants in Israel, including those who are Halachically Jewish (by Torah law) do not keep the kosher laws. The sale of pork and other non-kosher products has leaped exponentially with each new wave of Russian immigration from the former Soviet Union (FSU).
Gaydamak’s latest deal combined with the recent purchase of the Tel Aviv-based AM:PM markets by the owners of the kosher Blue Square company, will drastically reduce the availability of pork in the Jewish State. Regarding the Russian immigrant community in Israel of which Gaydamak is a part, he said that his fellow Russians "can survive eating beef in place of pork."
Meat Processing Workers Fear They’ll be Sent Packing
The deal was also a wake-up call to the workers at the Kibbutz Mizra meat processing plant, the largest producer of pork sausages in the entire Middle East. Tiv Taam today owns 75 percent of the Mizra plant.
Workers at Mizra, which retained 50 percent management rights for its plant under a special agreement with Tiv Taam, even though only 25 percent of its shares remain with the kibbutz, are worried now about job security.
“People are willing to pay more for our brand,” said one kibbutz member who requested anonymity, saying part of the brand’s draw is its non-kosher specialty line. “If we have to turn kosher we will have to be compensated.”
For Mr. Gaydamak, there is little that cannot be resolved with negotiation and money. The billionaire said he would not fire the workers at the Ma’adanei Mizra meat products plant, but would be willing to negotiate compensations for those who chose to leave.
Social Projects Building Support Among Terror Refugees
Arcadi Gaydamak has also made headlines in other important ways this past year, with special projects to succor traumatized Israelis on the northern and southern fronts during last summer’s Second Lebanon War and the present conflict in Gaza.
Most recently, the business tycoon, impatient with the government’s sluggish response to the needs for security for Sderot residents battered by Kassam rocket attacks, decided to deal with the matter privately, as he did last summer.
The billionaire simply paid for hundreds of hotel rooms for rocket-battered residents in need of a few days’ break, and provided buses to transport the families.
He also built a tent city, in Tel Aviv’s HaYarkon Park, for western Negev families who are not yet able to face returning to the constant rain of rocket fire from Gaza.
The tent city is similar to the one he built for northern residents while they were under attack last summer by Hizbullah terrorists launching Katyusha rockets from southern Lebanon.
Gaydamak has also promised to underwrite the cost of fortifying as many as 300 dwellings and others structures in the besieged city, pledging $60 million to pay for the project.