El Al attracts third potential buyer, extends ops suspension

A third potential buyer has sought a permit to acquire control of El Al Israel Airlines (LY, Tel Aviv Ben Gurion), prompting the Government Companies Authority to request a delay in the troubled carrier’s upcoming public offering. Sources told the the financial daily Globes that the buyer is Russian-Israeli businessman David Sapir, 61, who owns mostly tourism and telecommunications companies, none of them in Israel. He joins Eli Rosenberg, son of New York entrepreneur Kenny Rosenberg, and real estate tycoon Meir Gurvitz in a growing number of competing efforts to keep El Al in private hands. Following the third permit request, the Government Companies Authority asked the Ministry of Finance to reconsider its planned rescue of the airline, which involves a USD150 million offering on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange by August 31. It would not have time, it explained, to complete investigations into the three potential buyers by then. Sapir is believed to be interested in creating synergies with his international travel businesses. Born in Georgia, in the USSR, in 1959, David Sapiashvilli studied in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) in the 1980s, completing a PhD in economics, according to Globes. He began to work in tourism during perestroika, but after the Soviet Union’s collapse he bought telecoms company Giprosvyaz when it was privatised in 1993. He obtained an Israeli passport in 2018 but continues to spend most of his time in Russia. Meanwhile, El Al announced it has extended its suspension of all passenger flights until at least September 30. Around 6,080 employees, almost the entire workforce, will have their unpaid leave extended until that date. The fleet remains grounded except for a small number of cargo operations between Tel Aviv Ben Gurion and both Liège and New York JFK using a single B747-400(FSCD), N487MC (msn 30609), wet-leased in from Atlas Air (5Y, New York JFK), the ch-aviation capacities module shows. The airline blamed the extension on “continued restrictions regarding mandatory isolation for travellers entering Israel (except from a very small number of countries) and the ban on foreign tourists from entering Israel.” El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin said that “there is still a significant way to go until the restart of scheduled flights.”