"We will turn Ace into Costco, we will sell everything there - from pasta to a kitchen faucet"
Ronen Ganon, the Haredi real estate entrepreneur who acquired Ace, Betili, Auto Depot, and 50% of Zol Stock, is entering the big leagues. The plan: to turn Ace into a chain that combines home accessories with food and to double the number of branches within a year. In an interview, he looks back at his childhood as a yeshiva student in a low-income family of seven and tells of the path he took to his real estate and retail empire.
"The plan is to turn the Ace chain into the American Costco," declares Ronen Ganon, the Haredi real estate entrepreneur from Safed who recently bought for 173 million shekels the Multi Retail group, which is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and owns the Ace, Auto Depot, Betili, and Urban chains. Now Ganon intends to merge these chains with another holding of his - 50% of the Zol Stock chain that he acquired about a year ago from Yohananoff. A merger that is expected to boost sales in his retail business to about 1.7 billion shekels a year.
Ganon, a very well-known figure in the Haredi public, especially the Sephardic one, is identified with Shas and in the past served as chairman of the party in Safed and is considered one of Aryeh Deri's associates. In an interview with "Mamon" and ynet, he says: "I have a game changer in my arsenal." Ganon still refuses to detail the full plan extensively, but it has become known that he intends to open for the first time in Ace food departments that will offer dry food such as rice, pasta, cornflakes, coffee, and everything that comes in a package, including cleaning supplies. The model is the American Costco, where prices are significantly cheaper than in marketing chains. The goal is for the consumer to find in Ace everything needed for the home, from food to a kitchen faucet.
"We will double the number of Ace branches," promises Ganon. "Within a year we will reach 50 branches, with an area of 800 to 1,000 square meters." Where does the confidence come from? "I brought with me insights from my experience in the food industry, when I previously established with the Sapir brothers 'Neto Hisachon' and today as the owner of the 'Shai Market' mini-market chain. We checked the success of Osher Ad: they invented the wheel because they greatly reduced the variety to 6,000 products, on which they accumulated significant purchasing power and managed to lower prices for the consumer. 60% of the average basket consists of 600 to 700 products on which we will focus, later we will also move to frozen foods like in Costco, we will bring a lot of innovations in both food and non-food. I understood that the principle is to constantly surprise the consumer, we will combine retail and food aggressively and win big. We will also bring a lot of brands in our parallel import. According to my vision, on November 1st we will start the revolution. I want to be the biggest in the country in the field and the cheapest."
From yeshiva to business
To realize the vision, Ganon uses the understanding of the field of his partners, the founders-CEOs, Adir Vanunu and Sahar Kochavi. Recently, he even added to his ranks the accountant David Saban, who was the CFO of IKEA for 13 years, and will henceforth serve as VP of Business Development for Ganon Retail. Ganon (51), a native of Kiryat Gat, married, father of five and grandfather of 10 grandchildren, lives in Safed.
"I grew up in Kiryat Gat to a father who immigrated from Morocco and a mother born in the country from Ashkelon," he says, "We were a traditional home of 7 people. One day they knocked on the door and told my parents that a free education framework for a long school day had opened, they were so happy and that's how I got to Haredi education. I was a good student and continued to a high yeshiva — 'Shaarit Yosef' in Beer Yaakov. For 10 years I was on the rabbinate track, at age 21 I got married and following my wife I moved to live in Safed."
"Safed is returning to its glory. There is an influx of Haredi public to the city, which is one of the four holy cities. A Haredi public is arriving that finds it expensive to buy an apartment in the center. In Safed, a 4-room apartment costs between 1.8 and 2 million shekels, compared to 6 million shekels for a similar apartment in Jerusalem. There is also demand from Haredim from abroad. In the Tel Aviv area, the real estate market has stopped, with us it is growing."
Very quickly, Ganon connected to the Shas stream in the city and began educational activity after identifying that there was only an Ashkenazi school in the area. "I was 30 and I decided to establish through foundations close to Shas Sephardic education frameworks. It's not a small thing for me, when I was a child I remember how hard it was for my parents to pay for dental treatments, I said then to mom, 'When I grow up I will open a free dental clinic', and in time we established in Safed a dental clinic that operates to this day, at cost price for the patient."
Transition to the business sector
How did you make the transition from yeshiva student to the business sector? "I felt a need to increase the activity and the mission of kindness. During the Second Lebanon War, I met Haredi businessmen from the USA who were the big donors of the kindness system for the residents of the North, they wanted to invest in real estate in the city. I bought for them apartments in Safed for pennies, 100,000 shekels for a 4-room apartment, I started buying and selling and rolling. Later we bought hotels in Tiberias and Safed and then I also bought land and we started building. I learned on the go. Today I have projects of income-producing real estate and residential. In Safed, for example, I am building the new neighborhoods, not only for Haredim. I am the biggest contractor in the city."
"I reached retail following the dream of making accessible to the religious public in Safed a shopping experience at accessible prices, they introduced me to the Sapir brothers who operated in the area and together we established 'Neto Hisachon' with branches in Safed, Beitar Illit, Ma'alot and more, after three years the partnership ended, but they still manage for me all the trade and logistics in the 'Shai Market' food chain that I established for the Haredi public."
In time, he said, he understood that what attracts him is actually the non-food business, and that's how he reached the stock field, when he bought from the Yohananoff chain 50 percent of its holdings in Zol Stock which operates 90 branches.
The home field in Safed
For years Ganon's strong arm was the real estate business. Recently it was published that he bought for 100 million shekels the plot of 8 dunams in Safed, on which sat the legendary instant coffee factory of Elite, which was established in 1956 and became one of the symbols of the city, until Strauss decided to close it. Ganon plans to build in place of the coffee factory, a residential project for the wealthy Haredi audience that will also include 8,000 square meters of luxury commercial space in the style of "Mamilla" in Jerusalem and with an investment of about 350 million shekels. It will have 164 luxury housing units, a spa, gyms, and a pool. The planners are the "Feigin Architects" office that designed the luxury hotels Waldorf Astoria and Orient in Jerusalem.
In the past, Ganon bought from the Hatzi Hinam chain 50% of Binyamina Winery, on part of whose lands the construction of residential neighborhoods is planned. Now in the interview, he reveals that recently in partnership with Shmuel Attias, owner of the Haredi supermarket chain "Netiv Hesed", they bought the old mall (Drucker Mall) in the heart of Safed's pedestrian mall, which was almost abandoned and he intends to renovate it. "I dream that all the big brands will come to the city, Haredim also buy in them," he says.
At the same time, he is building neighborhoods for Haredim in the city and also projects for secular people. He himself lives in a private house he built in the Neve Oranim neighborhood, a mixed neighborhood, and near him live in their own houses his four married daughters, two of whom, Shilat and Efrat, work with him in the real estate business. The other two, Shirel and Tael, are employed in the daycare project. Ganon boasts that all his sons-in-law work: three of them in other businesses of his: marketing a brand he owns for a water bar that keeps Shabbat, marketing and managing a project of Shabbat plates with flame retardant material, and marketing the Pompeditah project, which Ganon initiated in memory of his father - an Aramaic translation of the Talmud and holy writings. A fourth son-in-law works for his father in the Dabah kashrut system. His youngest son who recently got married, moved to study in a yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Safed is his home field, where he operates opposite the municipality and its head, Shas man Yossi Kakun. Ganon is one of the movement's activists, close to its founder Aryeh Deri and his public work in the city is great. A few months ago Ganon married off his son in a magnificent wedding with many participants, from the list of guests one could learn about his status in the sector, when the guests of honor were Deri, Rabbi Baruch Abuhatzeira, the Rishon LeZion Rabbi David Yosef, Minister Eli Cohen and more. The bride, by the way, is the daughter of Moshe Peretz, one of the owners of the veteran real estate company "Peretz Bonei HaNegev".
Safed is a poor city at a socio-economic level 2, not a demand area for luxury housing. What is your optimism based on? "Safed is returning to its glory. There is an influx of Haredi public to the city, which is one of the four holy cities. A Haredi public is arriving that finds it expensive to buy an apartment in the center. In Safed, a 4-room apartment costs between 1.8 and 2 million shekels, compared to 6 million shekels for a similar apartment in Jerusalem. There is also demand from Haredim from abroad. In the Tel Aviv area, the real estate market has stopped, with us it is growing.
"There is no doubt that Safed is becoming Haredi, because there is no employment for secular youth and they move to Haifa and the center. I believe in the city, almost all my businesses are concentrated in it. We have already reached a situation where real estate entrepreneur Akiva Zurbin, who is considered one of the biggest in the field of luxury apartments for the Haredi sector, comes to invest in the city - this is a sign that we have progressed."
The challenge of Ace
Ganon entered the food business with the "Shai Market" neighborhood supermarket chain and a chain of butcher shops. Now, as mentioned, he is expanding precisely in the direction of non-food, from furniture (Betili), through home equipment (Ace) to Auto Depot. Ganon will be the fifth owner of the Ace chain, which has changed hands many times and faced quite a few difficulties since it entered the country in the 90s under the franchise of the American parent company and brought the "do it yourself" message. After that, it merged with the "Kana U'Bne" chain and became Ace and was owned by Clal Sahar, Tambour, and Shufersal. In 1998, businessman Gad Zeevi, who was then at his peak, bought it and the Auto Depot company was also added to it. In 2005, when Zeevi ran into difficulties, the Gaon Holdings group led by the late Benny Gaon bought the chain from the receiver for 95 million shekels. In 2007, they took the company public and five years later Ace entered a stay of proceedings due to debts of 450 million shekels and was sold by court decision to Electra Consumer Products, controlled by the Zalkind brothers - for 129 million shekels and was delisted from trading.
In 2017, the private equity fund "Kedma" bought it from Electra for only 145 million shekels and it also experienced a roller coaster. The fund bought for Ace the furniture chains Betili, ID Design, and Urban for 100 million shekels - based on their success during the Corona period when the public, trapped within its four walls, upgraded its home. In 2021, in the "boom" of IPOs and based on the surge in "home upgrade" sales, Kedma managed to take Ace public at a valuation of 400 million shekels, but after Corona, sales crashed and Ace ended 2023 with a loss of 45 million shekels. It ended 2025 with a meager profit of only 4.7 million shekels. Now Kedma has sold its holdings to Ganon — 70% of the company at a valuation of 240 million shekels, 60% above the share price that has crashed since the IPO.
"Kedma had a difficult time," explains Ganon. "Betili caused it losses and dragged the whole company with it. They understood that steps needed to be taken, they closed branches and streamlined. Today Ace is growing, it's a challenge to take a faltering company and boost it."
Why did you choose to expand in the non-food business and not in the food business? "Because I discovered that in food, the erosion of profitability is crazy, the competition is tough, you have expiration dates. In food, the profitability on turnover is only 2% to 3% and in the non-food world like stock stores, the profitability reaches 10%. The profit on the product in the stock, which is significantly higher, brought me to the understanding that the worlds of stock and Ace are more profitable. My goal is to increase imports, to be first-hand, to improve profitability and lower the price for the consumer. I learned that whoever comes to the stock wants to buy cheap even though he knows that it is about perishable products and prefers to replace a product several times if necessary than to pay a high one-time price. This is true especially in toys and children's craft products."
So how will it actually work? "In Zol Stock we will open new departments like garden furniture, we will expand school equipment and roll out a new format of mini-stock branches. We are already signed on 15 locations, one of them at the Savidor train station in Tel Aviv and soon in Elkana, Dimona, Netanya, Afula, Hatzor HaGlilit and more. I understood that size has enormous value in terms of purchasing power and trade conditions against suppliers, that's why we bought from the Kedma fund the holdings in the Multi Retail group."
Shas currently enjoys many budgets, what will happen on the day after if the government changes? "No one can close the tap to the world of Torah, even if a government is formed without Haredim, they will still recognize the value of Torah. I have no doubt that on the issue of Haredi conscription, even the new leaders, if there are any, will find a law that balances between those who study Torah and those who don't."
