Jelmoli deal's off, war's on

One of "the biggest real estate deals Israelis ever did in Europe" turns out to be something other than actually done. On July 31st the local press went wild over the deal in which Yitzhak Tshuva's real estate giant Delek Global Real Estate, teamed up with Israeli businessman Egal Ahouvi, agreed to buy a portfolio of 88 yield-generating properties from Jelmoli. Then yesterday Delek stated that the adjusted price for the portfolio didn't adequately reflect the changes in the international commercial property market, and bowed out.

Delek and Ahouvi were to pay a vast NIS 12 billion (3.4 billion Swiss francs) for the portfolio and back then Jelmoli chairman Walter Fust had the warmest of words for his Israeli colleagues. The Jelmoli executive was confident that in Delek and Ahouvi, it had found the right buyers for the company's vast portfolio of assets in Switzerland, Fust said at the time: an international business group that could assure the further development of the properties.