Globes is reporting that Eli Rozenberg is now the controlling shareholder of El Al.
The airline put its’ shares up on the public market today. Meir Gurvitz and David Sapir, who were said to be interested in buying the airline, did not bid for the shares.
The share of the previous controlling Borowitz family has been diluted and they will no longer control the company.
Eli Rozenberg is the 26 year old Israeli son of Kenny Rozenberg, US owner of Centers Heath Care nursing homes. Israel’s golden share of El Al requires that the owner of El Al be Israeli, so the bid had to come from Eli.
The price paid, said to be about $100 million for roughly 43% of the airline, is inexpensive for an airline, but El Al is a real fixer-upper right now. The state of Israel will hold about 12-15% of the airline and will try to unload their shares within the next couple years.
El Al’s powerful labor unions have saddled the airline with ultra-expensive labor contracts, the company owes hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds for cancelled flights, flight operations have been closed since March, it faces more competition than ever, and its reputation is in the gutter.
I suppose that the good news is that the only place it can go now is up?
Do you think the Rozenberg’s will be able to turn the ship around and transform El Al from an industry laughingstock into an airline that Israel can be proud of?
I sure hope so!
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97 Comments On "Mazel Tov: 26 Year Old Eli Rozenberg Is Reportedly The New Controlling Shareholder Of El Al!"
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How do you turn around an airline with no experience in the aviation industry. Might be in for a surprise especially being it is ElAl
If Eli will remember WHO is ultimately in charge, he will do well iyH.
Plenty of G-D fearing people have had unsuccessful businesses and lousy returns on investment. Yes, yiraas Shemayim is vital, but because we don’t control the universe— plenty of Histadlus is going to be needed, especially for ElAl.
Time for Eli to recruit Dan.
Maybe they will finally be nice to yeshivalite…
Cant make money that way…
Every airline has to focus on revenue and revenue per mile, etc. Most Yeshivaleit travel on discounted fares and that is not profitable. They will and should try to focus on the experience of premium and repeat premium passengers, ie.. the NON leisure market.
+1
Mazel Tov! I actually know Eli very well he’s a close friend and i know he will be very successful iyh! Hes that kind of guy so this is great news! Maybe they will finally be nice to yeshivalite…
If by ‘nice to yeshivalite’ you mean ‘sexist’, that sounds like a sure way to get sued into bankruptcy. So, don’t hold your breath.
Ha….. I hate what you wrote “A”, but I have to agree with you. If defining “yeshivalite” means wanting to suddenly change your seat because you don’t want to sit next a woman, or because your wife became a niddah yesterday— then the same failures and chillul Hashems will occur. Better to institute a way of booking seats based on the gender you’d like to sit next to (if legally allowed). None of this changing seats on the tarmac causing hours worth of delays. Other than that….. be friendly to minyanim mid-flight (assuming no turbulence)…. be friendly with shabbos… and we should be good. Fresh Glatt kosher would be impossible, because the meals need to be delivered double wrapped.
There are PC friendly solutions to these problems. I’ve suggested them to El Al over the years, to no avail.
Who wants to sit next to their spouse for 10 hours on a plane anyway? Just book separate seats to begin with.
Haha… so you’ve been married for > 25 years…..
sounds like you should do separate planes
separate destinations!
I’m with you brother. After 26+ years of marriage B”H, I hear you. We’ll leave it at that.
If u get in touch with him and show him the light he’ll be in good shape
Do you think the Rozenberg’s will be able to turn the ship around and transform El Al from an industry laughingstock to an airline that Israel can be proud of?
Only if they hire you!
Mazel tov!
Are we sure that he’s 26?
Are we sure that it makes a difference?
Haha! Love this
מזל טוב!!
הצלחה רבה!!
In his first move, the airline’s name has been changed to Eli Al.
This is a funny comment. I think that you are funny.
Funny how?
Like a clown? I ammuse you…?
Lol
That works much better as an acronym!
“every landing IS always late”
Time will tell
I hope someone’ll remind him to pay back for cancellation tickets/flights…
I’m confused I thought Meir Gurvitz and David Sapir also put in offers to buy the airline?
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-eli-rozenberg-only-bidder-in-el-als-tase-offering-1001343038
I’m just preparing the text.
BREAKING NEWS:
Dan of Dan’s Deals has been nominated to a senior advisor position at ElAl, by request of Kenny Rosenberg. Eli said he will pop in if necessary too. Consider yourself lucky to having known Dan as an ordinary citizen. Best of luck!
HT: Doom and Gloom (maybe time to change his name)
It’s not a stretch. Every company has a bunch of advisors and consultants on retainer
After working directly under Mr. Rozenberg sr. and his partners for almost 10 years. I have full faith that they will make El Al great again. they’ve done it for all their nursing homes and many other businesses they’ve acquired across a variety of industries.
@Dan, if you have ideas that you would like to share with them to make El Al into a great airline, contact me and I can put you in touch with them.
Endless ideas. They know where to find me 🙂
Tell them to join ddf!
Benny, that’s like saying…. “let’s split the lotto winnings. I’ll hold the ticket, and when we win… you’ll give me a call…”
Benny please get me in touch with them I’m in the traveling line for a very long time
I hope Mr. Rosenberg is successful and turns ElAl into a pleasant airline. Unfortunately, the airline industry as a whole has overall lost money over their history. on top of that ElAl is notorious for poor customer service and is currently holding onto other people’s money for no reason. It’s going to be difficult to earn back trust.
Looks like Mr. Rosenberg paid a fair price for terrible company. Would be better to acquire a wonderful company at a fair price. I don’t believe ElAl fits that description.
The Rosenberg’s have a lot of experience dealing with unions.
Yup, I can attest first hand.
He once bought a NH, tried to renegotiate the union contract. They refused to budge and threatened him with a walkout. They eventually walked out, he bused staff in from his other homes in other areas of the state and put them up in local hotels. It took a few days and the union eventually caved in and begged him to take back their employees. He took back some of them but by then it was under his terms and not the unions.
In Israel, homey don’t play that game.
Wrong. I have family that worked decades at Hadasah , Ein Keren. They resigned en masses to protest. The resignations were accepted and all were without jobs.
Correction: Kenny Rosenberg has a lot of experience dealing with unions. Now fill in the blank for Eli______
Israeli unions?
But the nursing home business is nothing like the airline business. Maybe he should have bought Blockbuster video as well…
He hired a broad team of consultant, lawyers, advisirs, etc. So hopefully it’s a new start. But no doubt that with Covid and lack of incoming tourism, plus upcoming competition from ethiad/emirates, things will be challenging
If he can figure out dealing with the unions then everything else is workable.
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/airlines/el-al/mazel-tov-26-year-old-eli-rozenberg-reportedly-new-controlling-shareholder-el-al/#comment-1492915
These are unions that kept a grievance up against American Air over an old TWA debt for 10 or 15 years.
“Do you think the Rozenberg’s will be able to turn the ship around and transform El Al from an industry laughingstock to an airline that Israel can be proud of?”
Probably not. The only way they can survive at this point is to turn TLV into a connecting airport, but that’s probably not happening.
They can’t compete with the powerhouse hubs at ORD and DXB (among others), and there’s no logical airline who can provide them feed. Old management really dropped the ball by not partnering with JetBlue before they partnered with AA
Agreed. However, you are I are most familiar with the North American market. Are you familiar with Elal’s presence in Europe, Asia, South Africa? There are some routes which they are exclusive for. Other routes involve a 2-3 hour flight time, where a premium product may not be as pivotal.
Most of those routes that they’re exclusive for are fringe routes – not the ones that make or break an airline. Yes, premium products might not be pivotal flying to the 8th largest city in Poland, but that’s the point – it’s premium routes they need to be winning on.
And it’s not just about the premium product. It’s about the fact that all of their competition will have much easier time filling up their planes to TLV because they’re not entirely dependent on O&D. They were barely treading water when their only NA competition was UA/DL out of NYC and AC out off YYZ.
And to rub salt in the wounds, JetBlue will be funneling TLV passengers from JFK all over the country. But it won’t be El Al’s…. it will be AA’s. Unbelievable how badly the old management botched the airline.
Interesting dialogue. Perhaps it’s possible that ElAl may be a very different airline than what we are familiar with. Perhaps they will be that “Allegiant” or “Frontier” of Israel— flying to “third rate” cities in Poland and Europe. Sure… they’d have to let go of much of their larger aircraft typically flown across the Atlantic, but maybe that would be part of the new ElAl they are re imagining. It’s a sad/funny day that Nefesh B’Nefesh and Birthright trips (planned) are using United, and not ElAl, from NYC.
To be successful as a ULCC, you need to have really low overhead costs.
That’s just not feasible for them.
the good news is Israelis have no idea what customer service is. hope they hire a good CEO and focus on great customer service. flying on time and remove all the old red tape.
We hear so much about the successes of Kenny, and the powerful business exposure, negotiating expertise, positive relations with his massive staff, corporate dominance is certainly present with Kenny— but does anyone know anything about Eli? What has he done and accomplished in the business world? Based on his “resume”, what are some things he will do to change ElAl for the better? Has he turned around failing businesses before? Has he ever started a business from scratch? Or… are we talking about a puppet here?
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/airlines/el-al/mazel-tov-26-year-old-eli-rozenberg-reportedly-new-controlling-shareholder-el-al/
That link doesn’t provide anything, it’s of this page. There is mention of Kenny’s well earned achievements, but anything about Eli?
I hope the El Al new management succeeds.
How do we get our money back from all the tickets purchased pre-covid?
Dan posted 4 months ago
Yes, and agree that Dan is the man, but refunds have not been issued. Now that the company is being recapitalized, is there an update?
Hope they will offer much better strictly kosher food, and a nice small little “shul” on board!
Eli/Kenny if you are reading this: Hatzlacha Rabbah! You clearly have a lot of naysayers but I’m here to support you fully and wish you only success.
I hope you will choose to meet with Dan to pick his brain about how to make the airline successful. Obviously there is a lot going on here but at least for the mileage program he should be consulted.
Good luck and may you have a successful year!
I’m realizing now that there must have been some type of knowledge of the peace deals With UAE , Barhan , and more to follow in the region with this normalization between these countries I see huge new markets and routes to have ElAl become much more successful
Certainly more upside. And a lot more downside.
Those nations have their own airlines as well. Those markets certainly won’t be a simple home-run for ElAl
Not to mention that El Al is now allowed to fly over Saudi Arabia, which in addition to benefiting the Dubai and Abu Dhabi routes (and eventually Bahrain) will also cut the flight times on all flights to the Far East.
Can we expect chulent leil shishi?
100 million to buy, plus owes 400 million in refunds…
Sounds like a rough patch to get out of, before even opening up your airline after several months closed….
That’s a lot of operating losses before looking at a profit down the road..
When there’s blood in the streets…
This might give new meaning to the elal slogan.
Hachi bbayis bolam. Taken very literally, maybe they figured out how to make the planes into nursing homes and can bill Medicare!
I think it’s a great deal for so many reasons.
There are thousands of FA’s and Pilots out of work around the globe who would happily relocate to TLV (or could remain US based). This will give the airline strength they have never had to renegotiate some of the crippling deals in place.
Fuel is projected to remain cheap for the next 2-3 years and strong Gulf relations will help keep supply strong.
The Gulf deals will certainly improve fleet utilization – I see big demand for these new routes. Hopefully they will trim the fat and eliminate some of the low margin Europe business. (Should also add that the Gulf deals should be fantastic for tourism).
El Al has next to no connection business at the moment. With strong leadership they could turn TLV into a major hub (think Southeast to Europe, US to Southeast, etc).
Same thing goes for their freight business – it’s ripe for expansion.
A normal loyalty program, codeshares, need I say more? The opportunities are endless.
With all due respect to Dan, Dan may have the a wealth of knowledge as to how to make an airline a better airline. HOWEVER, does Dan know how to do that while considering the dollars and cents? People want all the perks of Emirates, etc but don’t want to pay!
I didn’t sit around all day and do nothing in business school ya’ know 😉
Gonna be hard to turn it around. Would’ve been better to start a new airline without all the baggage 😉
Airline without baggage? Oh you mean like spirit?
My line about spirit was a pun….
But in reality to answer your question; starting an airline would cost a lot more than $100mm
Yes. But el al is going to cost half a billion AND has entrenched issues
I Hope they will start Keeping shobbos now!
With all the respect to the commenters,
If Mr Donald Trump, was able to turn around all the messy and sloppy work Obama had created during his 8 year period in office, why wouldn’t Mr Rosenberg which has a Jewish smart head, be able to workup and make a quick turn around to the airline, with some great work and energy and siyata dishmaye, things can move along nice and quick!
I don’t think Obama was as bad as ELAL
What about refunds on cancelled flights that are due to previous customers
I’m actually surprised the rosenbergs didn’t start a new airline from scratch where they wouldn’t have to contend with unions old bad deal losing contracts and 400 million in debt for sold unused tickets
It would’ve been much easier and cheaper to start new
It may have taken longer to get off the ground (pun intended) but ultimately more profitable
I am very shocked and disappointment by the low language used in some of these posts. I ask you to sensor the comments before being posted or I will need to block this site.
I ask you to censor the atrocious spelling on this site or I will be forced to learn a new language known as frum spelling.
Im not sure what you mean. I have yet to see a speling mistake on this sight.
You’ll definitely not like the ‘bag of crap’ deals then…
MAZEL tov hashem should give you everything great to your new business
Please please Eli add first class to the aircraft’s like LH AF OR SWISS it’s a must
why should he bring back first class so you can use your points to sit in first?do you think hed make money form you using points you purchased?
Dan and eli, (we know your reading this) realistically talking can you reinstate the elal early luggage pickup? Was an amazing service. Realistically can you make the seats a little more comfortable? Last but not least. Let dan help you work on a points system with a good bank. No more matmid BS
Make tel aviv a real hub. Not only a destination
Can sell flight from Asia to europe and USA.
Like emirates, Turkish, Swiss and KLM
Bring the best 1sr class ans business seats. And cabin confront with new elegant and relaxing design
Stop the employ Israeli arrogance,
Yeah. Sure makes sense to fly ny to tlv for 11 hours then 9 hours to se Asia instead of flying via Japan and saving 7 hours or direct to philipines or hkg or pvg or icn or taiwan or or or …. and on the way back tack on another 3 hours flying the wrong way. That’s besides the additional layover time.
First thing to do is change the name. El and Al can be confused with Shem Hashem, so make it Keil Kal 🙂
I wonder how he suddenly acquired the wealth from his father? Think IRS is looking to see if gift taxes were filed?