"The Trojan Horse Inside": The struggle for control over the Ram-On board of directors intensifies
Maron Greenberg, a shareholder of Ram-On Investments, has defined Eldav's entry into the board as a destabilization attempt. The parties are in dispute over the company's development strategy and methods for unlocking value.
"The Trojan horse inside" - this is how Maron Greenberg, one of the shareholders of Ram-On Investments, defines the entry of Eldav into the company's board of directors. Greenberg, who signed a voting agreement with Moshav Ram-On, published a sharp position paper yesterday in response to Eldav's attempt to change the composition of the board of directors. The position paper was published ahead of the shareholders' meeting to be held at the beginning of next week, in which the Moshav seeks to elect five candidates: Uri Rosenberg, Raz Hangali, Shaul Ashkenazi, Dr. Iris Arbel, and Greenberg himself.
Eldav seeks to retain three directors it supports and add two independent directors on its behalf, Amir Ben Yehuda and Ron Hadasi, so that the quintet of candidates supported by it will also include Amir Diamant, Yaakov Nimakovsky, and Liron Sliman-Yankovich. Greenberg (6.7%) is a businessman and former CEO of the investment company Elron. Today he is a private shareholder who is not a member of Moshav Ram-On, but has entered into a voting agreement with the Moshav (16.5%) and serves as its representative.
Both sides actually agree that Ram-On needs change, but Greenberg argues that Eldav is trying to carry it out in an aggressive and confrontational manner, which could harm the company's value and its relationships with its partners. Ram-On is a company for the production, development, and marketing of a variety of products. In Israel, the company manufactures all its products and sells them mainly to the irrigation, automotive, and electrical industries and to the consumer goods sector. Outside of Israel, the company focuses mainly on products for the automotive industry.
Eldav claims that the existing management has failed in capital allocation and points to investments totaling 90.4 million shekels, which it claims have lost about 46 million shekels of their value. It seeks to establish a board of directors that will have more capital market people and will be more independent from the Moshav. On the other hand, Greenberg and the Moshav argue that they are also interested in realizing or improving assets and unlocking value, but not through confrontation and the rapid dismantling of the holding company.
Eldav, controlled by Ronen Sternbach, became a stakeholder in the company in October 2024. It became the third largest shareholder in the company, with a holding of 10.95%. To make a drastic change in the composition of the company's board of directors, Eldav will need to enlist the support of institutional bodies Migdal (11.8%) and Yelin Lapidot (10.9%).
Beyond that, the struggle is taking place against the backdrop of a proposal to purchase land from Ram-On Investments, in which the Moshav may participate. Ram-On Investments holds 78.8% of Ram-On Buildings, which holds rights to real estate in the Moshav where the Polyram factory is located. The Moshav holds the remaining 21.2% in Ram-On Buildings. Before the board of directors is a proposal from the company Mishkei Atiya Menivim in Kibbutzim to purchase the factory complex for 46 million shekels. According to the proposal, the asset is to be purchased jointly with Ram-On, and the Moshav will hold at least 26% of it.
Behind the struggle is a fundamental dispute over the future of Ram-On. Greenberg argues that Eldav is actually seeking to dismantle the holding company by realizing its assets or distributing them to shareholders. This is while Ram-On's stock has fallen by 19% in the last five years. The company's market value stands at 178 million shekels.
