Gilad Mai: What Really Remains In Netanya After Selling 25%
The main article showed that the 25% Netanya sale changed the 2025 headline. This follow-up isolates what remained: 75% of a project that still had not recognized revenue, with 119 apartments and all retail area still left to market at the end of 2025, but also with marketing control shifted to the partner and expected gross margin down to 14.3%.
What Was Really Sold, And What Was Not
The main article argued that Netanya changed the 2025 headline. This follow-up isolates the question that remained after that headline: once the company sold 25% of the rights in the project, how much of the future economics really stayed with it, and in what form.
The easiest mistake is to read the transaction as if the company sold one quarter of the project and received a nearly full cash windfall. That is not what happened. The consideration was about NIS 120 million, but only NIS 26.4 million was paid to the company in cash. The balance did not come in as fresh cash. It was settled by assigning 25% of the existing financing loans to the buyer, so the buyer joined the financing agreements as a borrower. That improved liquidity and reduced some financing load, but this was not a NIS 120 million cash event.
That chart matters because it separates headline monetization from cash that actually entered. The transaction gave the company breathing room, but most of the relief came through the financing structure rather than through a jump in cash on hand.
It also explains why Netanya looked bigger than its operating stage really justified. In 2025 the income statement recognized NIS 129.1 million of revenue from the sale of rights, including about NIS 9 million of expense reimbursement. At the same time, the project itself still had no recognized revenue at all. Even the explanation for cost of sales says the year included a loss of about NIS 4.6 million from the sale and the entry of the partner. That point matters. The 25% sale changed the year’s headline, but it did not turn Netanya into a project already generating recurring recognized profit.
What Really Remained For The Company In Netanya
After the sale, the company was not left with a small tail of the project. It kept most of the project. Its effective stake remained 75%, and the key operating and economic layers still left open were substantial.
| Layer | What remained after the sale | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | 75% of the project | The company still carries most of the economics, but also most of the risk |
| Residential inventory | 91 apartments were sold by year-end 2025 out of 210, meaning 119 apartments were still left to market | Most of the monetization path still sits ahead |
| Retail inventory | About 1,500 sqm of retail space remained without contracts | The retail layer still has not proven demand |
| Project economics | Expected revenue of NIS 1.049 billion, expected costs of NIS 899.2 million, expected gross profit of NIS 149.8 million, and expected withdrawable surplus of NIS 240.4 million, all on a 100% project basis | There is still meaningful value on paper, but not all of it belongs to the company and not all of it is near-term |
| Timing | Construction start expected in Q2/2026, marketing completion in Q4/2028, and construction completion in Q3/2029 | What remains is not near-term value but a development layer that still needs time |
The chart sharpens the continuation thesis. Even after the 25% sale, and even after four more sales alongside one cancellation by the publication date, most of the apartments were still unsold. At the same time, the project’s marketing rate at the end of 2025 stood at only 43.8%, and only 8 new apartment contracts were signed during 2025. In other words, what remained with the company was not an almost-finished residual. It was still most of the monetization path.
The yellow flag is that this remaining path also became thinner than it used to be. The project’s expected total gross profit fell from NIS 221.9 million in 2023 to NIS 174.8 million in 2024 and then to NIS 149.8 million in 2025. The expected gross margin also fell from 22.2% to 16.9% and then to 14.3%.
That is the heart of the story. Anyone looking only at the expected withdrawable surplus line of NIS 240.4 million may think the project residue left to the company actually looks bigger than the expected gross profit line. But those two lines are not the same thing. The bridge table shows that withdrawable surplus includes not only future development profit, but also the return of equity already invested, net of relevant financing layers. So expected surplus is not net profit, and it is certainly not immediate free cash at the company level.
What No Longer Remained With The Company In The Same Way
The company kept 75% of the economics, but it did not keep the full commercial steering wheel. Alongside the sale agreement, the parties signed a joint venture agreement under which each side appoints a representative to the project management body and decisions are made according to relative ownership, except for material decisions that require unanimity. Beyond that, the buyer became responsible for marketing the project and selling all the units, including the retail area, and is entitled to a fixed marketing and sales commission plus additional payments tied to sales targets.
This is the point a reader can easily miss if they stop at the ownership percentage. The company retained most of the economics, but not full commercial control. Put more simply, the sale did not only remove 25% of the rights. It also brought in a partner that now holds the marketing steering wheel, which means part of the pace of future monetization no longer depends only on the company itself.
There is also a disclosure gap that matters. In the project table, the field for the names of the project partners remained blank, even though the partner was given full responsibility for marketing and selling the remaining inventory. That does not make the transaction problematic by itself, but it does mean public readers receive less information than they would ideally want about the party now responsible for selling most of what is left.
What Still Has To Happen Before This Residue Becomes Accessible Value
This is where the February 2026 immediate report matters. On February 9, 2026, the project received the excavation and shoring permit. That is real progress, because it closes one milestone without which the project cannot move cleanly from land and planning into execution. The May 2025 financing agreement ties that directly to the next step: the construction and full-lending stage is conditional, among other things, on equity injection, pre-sales, and receipt of the excavation and shoring permit.
But even after that milestone, the project is not de-risked. At the end of 2025, the project-level balance presented as short-term loans stood at NIS 265.1 million, and the total financing package was defined at up to NIS 1.042 billion, including NIS 340 million for the land stage, up to NIS 350 million for the construction stage, and NIS 1.04 billion of buyer-guarantee facilities. The company also committed to obtain a full building permit by June 30, 2026, to keep equity of at least NIS 70 million, to maintain an equity-to-balance-sheet ratio of at least 11%, and to keep tangible equity positive. At the same time, the project table still showed no construction contractor agreements.
The meaning is straightforward. The excavation and shoring permit closed one box, not all the boxes. What remained in Netanya after the 25% sale was a project with meaningful value on paper, but also with a checklist that still had to be completed: full building permit, construction contractor, full project lending, sales pace, and equity funding. That is the real difference between an asset partially monetized and value already accessible.
Demand That Also Came From Inside
This continuation would be incomplete without pausing on the related-party disclosure. The company disclosed that in August 2023 several apartment purchases in the Netanya project were approved for related parties.
| Related buyer | Units | Consideration incl. VAT (NIS millions) |
|---|---|---|
| Yoel Yifrah, controlling shareholder and chief business officer | 1 | 14.043 |
| Gilad Yifrah, company CEO | 1 | 10.310 |
| Itzik Turgeman, chairman | 1 | 5.270 |
| Daughters of the controlling shareholder | 2 | 7.816 |
| Father of the CEO’s partner | 1 | 5.330 |
| Total | 6 | 42.769 |
That table is not meant to argue that the transactions are invalid. It does mean that part of the early sales book also came from inside the circle. In a project that still had 119 apartments and all the retail space left to market at the end of 2025, and that signed only 8 new contracts during 2025, that point belongs in the reader’s frame. Open-market demand still needs broader proof.
Bottom Line
After the 25% sale, Netanya remained a central asset for Gilad Mai. The company still holds 75% of a large project, with most of the apartments still ahead and with expected withdrawable surplus that looks highly material on a project basis. But what remained is not the same Netanya that existed before the sale. Only a small part of the consideration arrived in cash, expected profitability has eroded, revenue from the project itself is still absent from the income statement, marketing control moved to the partner, and the path to accessible value still runs through permits, lending, and execution.
That is the point. Netanya can still become a major value engine. But after the 25% sale, what remained with the company was not an opened cash drawer. It was most of a project that still has to prove three things at once: that marketing truly accelerates, that permits close on time, and that paper value actually rises to the listed entity rather than staying trapped inside the project tables.
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