More than ten interested parties have purchased forms for the tender to purchase ailing supermarket chain Clubmarket, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
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Six of the contenders have already visited the information centre, and five of them have been publicly identified, it said. They include the two largest chains, Supersol and Blue Square Israel; Rami Levy, who owns Rami Levy Shivuk Hashikma; Shlomo Rodev, owner of Israel Cold Storage and Supply; and the American real estate group Sheetrit, in partnership with Arik Elkayam, one of the owners of French company Elkain, which manages the Premier Club brand for Clubmarket.
Each bidder laid down 15,000 shekels (US$3.322) which means the troubled supermarket has already bagged 150,000 shekels. The company is under temporary court protection from its creditors after acrruing debts of some 1.3bn.
Market sources fear the minor independents won’t be able to match the bids of the big chains. The assumption is that the major chains wouldn’t be required to invest in marketing campaigns, and that it would be worth it for them to pay a premium to knock out the competition.
