A report by Israeli financial publication Globes has revealed that the Israeli government has offered funds totalling €500,000 to troubled produce giant Agrexco during a proposed 60-day stay of proceedings, down on a recommended €1.75m.
Representatives for the Ministry of Finance made the offering after the Tel Aviv District Court instructed the government, along with other shareholders and creditors of Agrexco, to outline their plans for financing the group over the upcoming months.
According to Globes, creditor banks have agreed to finance 15 per cent of Agrexco's expenses, while Tnuva Food Industries Ltd is the only shareholder that has agreed to inject capital in proportion to its holdings.
Shlomo Nass, the court-appointed trustee, had previously said that Agrexco will be forced into liquidation if the court could not be persuaded to extend the stay of proceedings for 60 days – a period that Nass will use to find a major investor.
'To our regret there are officials who do not care what happens to the state. They are only interested in pennies and all sorts of economic calculations,' Nass told Globes. 'They are not interested in what the court says or the Knesset Finance committee or even the ministers. It is a disgrace that the state is managed this way in the 21st century.'
A senior Ministry of Finance official told Globes that the government was ready to put up capital to change the impression that it was watching Agrexco collapse without acting, but noted that 'the sums described by the trustee seem exaggerated and we don't know how he reached them'.
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