Merhav VP Nimrod Novik sent packing

Yossi Maiman strips Novik from all his positions within multi-national conglomerate, claiming he threatened to harm company for personal gain

Golan Hazani, Lior Gutman|Published: 09.07.11 , 09:08

Businessman Yossi Maiman, head of multi-national conglomerate Merhav, has stripped Dr. Nimrod Novik of all his offices with the group.

Novik was one of the vice presidents in Merhav Group, which is Maiman's division for his international activity. Among his other offices with Merhav, Novik served as a director in Ampal, which has a 12.5% interest in Egyptian gas company EMG.

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Just a short while ago, Ampal's board decided to terminate Novik's tenure on the board for breach of fidelity duty towards the company. Novik will be ousted from his office as member of the board in Channel 10 as well.

Over the past several weeks, tensions between Maiman and Novik have been mounting on the backdrop of Novik's demand for bonuses and a salary raise, claimed sources within the company.

Ampal's board of directors determined, with the support of the company's external directors, that "Novik's actions and omissions constitute a breach of his fidelity duty towards the company and its shareholders."

Ampal's board discovered that Novik breached his fidelity duty by threatening to harm the company, motivated purely by personal gain, on the backdrop of a discrete feud (to which the company is not party) between Dr. Novik and company President and CEO Yossi Maiman.

The directorate decided to take any legal actions that were necessary to protect the company from damages that were caused and might be caused in the future by Dr. Novik as well as sue him for any of the said damages.

Novik joined Merhav after many years in the ranks of Israel's foreign diplomatic service. In recent years, he captained the conglomerate's natural gas activity under the umbrella of EMG, the Egyptian gas supplier of which Maiman holds a 21% stake.

One of the main crises Novik dealt with recently was the Egyptian gas supply crisis. Since February 5, four terrorist sabotage attacks were carried out on the Egypt- Israel gas pipeline the last of which was launched last July.

Up to February, Egypt supplied 40% of Israel's gas demand. Recently, Novik addressed the issue and in a discussion held at the Knesset's Economic Affairs Committee last May claimed that the gas supply will be renewed and that EMG has no intention of hiking gas tariffs although such a demand was made.