Glickman retires as a rich man, the workers are left with the worries – and strike

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In his letter, Glickman stated that “in recent months, the company’s board of directors has promoted a merger process with Peg-Lloyd. I respect the board’s decision, but after thinking, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot continue to serve as CEO of Zim.”

The deal will continue – but so will the fight

Market sources estimate that Glickman’s retirement will not affect the promotion of the deal. Although Glickman is considered by some employees as someone who was “on their side”, but as someone who tried to purchase the company himself, there are those in the market who claim that he should have resigned as soon as he tried to purchase control of the company.

In any case, the board of directors, headed by Yair Sarousi, continues the process and has already announced the start of a search for a new CEO. The deal itself, however, still requires complex regulatory approvals, chief among them the question of whether the state (through the Competition Authority and the Ministry of Transportation) will activate its “golden share” to stop and perhaps even overturn the deal. It seems that this is the hope of the employees.

The strike of those who might be left behind

While Glickman finishes with ease, the picture on the lower floors is quite different. The Zim Workers’ Committee, headed by committee chairman Oren Caspi, announced a full strike. “900 workers are at risk of layoffs, and the entire maritime sovereignty of our country is in danger,” the committee’s announcement reads. “Every red line we have set has been violated. The board of directors works with us in divide and conquer methods, we will not abandon older workers, who have given their best years to the Navy, and are far from retirement age for a life of poverty. We will not allow Zim to be broken up into several small companies, so that the entire maritime trade of the country will remain in foreign hands. Therefore, we announce a complete shutdown of the company, starting from this moment.”

According to the workers’ committee, the profitable lines will go to Pag-Lloyd, the unprofitable lines will remain in Israel, and most of the workers will remain without work.” According to Caspi, Pag-Lloyd will take on only 120 Israeli workers and even then for a period of only one year. The Fimi fund, by the way, only plans to take on workers – the question is, of course, how many.

The dispute even became particularly productive, when Caspi claims that ZIM will actually become a company whose owners are “Saudi and Qatari sovereign funds”.

Fimi claims: “There will be no situation that Zim will not meet the state’s requirements”

The Fimi Fund tried to calm the state’s concerns already two months ago, when in a discussion in the Knesset’s Economic Committee, CEO and founder of the Fimi Fund, Yishai Davidi claimed that “We are going to establish the new ZIM, which will respond to maritime and economic security, and it is very strong. We are establishing a company with an equity capital of 700 million dollars and it has no debt at all. As of today, Zim has commitments on the ships of 5-6 billion dollars, we don’t have any.” When the chairman of the committee, MK Bitan, asked whether in the next war Zim would be able to meet all the needs of the state, Davidi replied: “Yes, with an exclamation mark… there will be no situation that the new Zim will not meet the requirements of the State of Israel.”

However, the Director of the Shipping and Ports Authority, Captain Zadok Redker, sounded much less optimistic, saying in the same discussion that “at least from the information we are fed by the media, we do not see anything good for the country. We know for sure that the shipping industry is going to enter a slump, and this reinforces the statements that the lean Israeli company has no financial viability. We see no chance that it will last. Shipping is a business with crazy expenses.”

The man who turned Zim – and came out rich

As mentioned, Glickman was appointed to the position in 2017, at a time when it was under the control of businessman Idan Ofer. Glickman previously told Globes that “When they approached me to be CEO of Zim I said, ‘What, am I crazy?’ It took more than six months of applications and in the end I decided to come, thanks to two things: the challenge and the reward. I took a great personal risk to my credit by joining a company like Zim.”

He was not disappointed with the reward. According to Globes data, between the years 2020 and 2024, the cost of his salary amounted to $26.6 million, of which $14.4 million was in equity compensation. But the big amount came from the dividends. Since the IPO, Zim has distributed huge cumulative dividends, so that in total, in the years when Glickman held between less than 1% and 1.3% of the stock, he enjoyed dividends of no less than $54 million. A few weeks ago, he also sold about 90% of his holdings – 1.4 million shares in two strokes, for about 40 million dollars.

The glory years – the profit that has never been seen in Israeli society

Glickman’s success is not just on paper. In each of the years 2021 and 2022, Zim recorded an annual net profit of approximately 4.65 billion dollars, following the surge in transportation prices in the world following the Corona epidemic. This amazing number made Zim the most profitable company in Israel’s history, when it was at its peak. In March 2022, Zim reached a market value of $10.6 billion, six times the value at which it was issued a year earlier (at a value of $1.7 billion, after money). After that, the stock lost ground.

But it is possible that Glickman can also blame himself for the events. Glickman tried his hand at submitting a purchase offer to the company, together with businessman and shipping magnate Rami Unger. However, Zim’s board of directors rejected the offer, in the amount of 20 dollars per share, which was too low in his eyes. Later, he accepted the offer of the Pugh-Lloyd Group and the Fimi Fund to purchase the company for $35 per share, a premium of almost 60% on the company’s stock price at the time. This deal was signed in February 2026, for a total sum of 4.2 billion dollars.

The shareholders’ meeting is set for April 30 to approve the deal. Then the shareholders will vote, on the sale of the company that has become one of the stormy sagas of the last period.