Willi-Food: How Much of 2025 Cash Flexibility Came from the Business, and How Much Came from Selling Securities
The main article already showed that Willi-Food’s 2025 cash build did not come from the business alone. This follow-up shows that after NIS 34.0 million of reported CAPEX, NIS 1.9 million of lease principal, and NIS 20.4 million of dividends paid to non-controlling interests, almost the entire increase in cash was closed by NIS 25.3 million of net securities realizations.
The main article already gave the compressed version: in 2025 Willi-Food did not increase cash through the operating business alone. This follow-up isolates the point more precisely, because it is very easy here to mix two very different frames. One is the liquidity frame, which includes the securities book. The other is the all-in cash frame, which asks how much cash was left after the year’s actual uses.
Both frames are legitimate. But they answer different questions. If the question is whether the group remained highly liquid, the answer is clearly yes. If the question is how much of the 2025 increase in cash came from the business itself after CAPEX, lease principal, and dividends to non-controlling interests, the answer is much more modest.
Two Frames, Two Different Answers
| Frame | What it includes | 2024 | 2025 | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current liquidity | Cash and cash equivalents + current financial assets | NIS 259.4 million | NIS 291.6 million | A large liquidity cushion that increased by NIS 32.3 million |
| All-in cash picture | Operating cash flow less reported CAPEX, lease principal, and dividends to non-controlling interests | Negative NIS 12.6 million | NIS 1.3 million | Before securities sales, almost no excess cash was left |
This chart explains why the surface read can mislead. At the end of 2025 the group held NIS 148.8 million of cash and another NIS 142.9 million of current financial assets, taking current liquidity to NIS 291.6 million. That is a strong balance-sheet picture, and it is fair to read it as evidence of excess liquidity.
But that is not the same question as cash flexibility. On an all-in cash basis, operating cash flow was NIS 57.6 million. After reported CAPEX of NIS 34.0 million, lease principal of NIS 1.9 million, and NIS 20.4 million of dividends paid to non-controlling interests, only NIS 1.3 million was left. In other words, the business almost funded the year’s real cash uses, but it did not by itself create the cash build that showed up in the year-end balance.
That is the core point. 2025 was a year of stronger liquidity, but not a year in which the operating business alone produced a wide cash surplus.
Where the Finance Line Stops Being Cash
The 2025 finance line looks very strong at first glance. Finance income reached NIS 46.8 million, finance expenses were NIS 2.7 million, and the net figure was NIS 44.1 million. But once the question becomes cash, that line has to be broken into its parts.
The critical point is that about NIS 33.8 million of 2025 finance income came from portfolio revaluation, NIS 32.6 million from fair-value changes in current financial assets and another NIS 1.1 million from revaluation of longer-term financial assets. Those figures strengthen earnings and the marked value of liquidity, but they are not cash that entered the bank account.
That is exactly what the cash bridge also shows. The adjustments between earnings and operating cash flow reduced the figure by NIS 33.5 million, and almost all of that came from the increase in the fair value of financial assets. In other words, what strengthened the finance line was almost entirely removed once the company moved from profit to cash.
That is why the two views can both be true at the same time. The NIS 32.3 million increase in current liquidity can largely reflect revaluation gains, while the actual increase in cash still depends on realized securities sales. These are not conflicting readings. They are two different measurement frames.
The 2025 Cash Bridge
| Item | 2024 | 2025 | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating cash flow | NIS 42.6 million | NIS 57.6 million | Improved by NIS 15.0 million |
| Reported CAPEX and construction in progress | NIS 48.7 million | NIS 34.0 million | Down by NIS 14.8 million |
| Lease principal payments | NIS 2.3 million | NIS 1.9 million | Largely unchanged |
| Dividends to non-controlling interests | NIS 4.1 million | NIS 20.4 million | A meaningful jump in cash leaving the group |
| Excess cash after the year’s real uses | Negative NIS 12.6 million | NIS 1.3 million | A sharp improvement, but still a very narrow margin |
| Net realization of fair-value financial assets | Negative NIS 1.8 million | NIS 25.3 million | A swing from investment to monetization |
| Actual change in cash | Negative NIS 14.1 million | NIS 25.1 million | The cash build depended materially on the portfolio |
This bridge says something very sharp. In 2025 the operating business generated enough cash to cover almost all of the year’s real cash uses, but not much more than that. After CAPEX, lease principal, and dividends to non-controlling interests, only NIS 1.3 million remained. From that point onward, almost the entire actual increase in cash came from NIS 25.3 million of net securities realizations.
There is another detail here that matters. G. Willi-Food paid two dividends in 2025 totaling NIS 50 million, NIS 30 million in March and NIS 20 million in August. But not all NIS 50 million left the consolidated perimeter. NIS 29.6 million was attributable to the parent’s own stake and stayed within the consolidated group, while only NIS 20.4 million was attributable to non-controlling interests and actually flowed out. That already makes the consolidated bridge easier than the subsidiary headline suggests. Even so, the business-only residual still remained almost flat.
That is also why 2025 is not just a repeat of 2024, but also not a fully clean year. In 2024 the business did not cover all real cash uses, and the shortfall before portfolio activity was negative NIS 12.6 million. In 2025 that gap was almost fully closed, mainly because operating cash flow improved and CAPEX fell. That is a real improvement. But the remaining margin was still far too small to explain a NIS 25.1 million increase in cash on its own.
Securities Sales Funded the Year, but Did Not Drain the Cushion
The overly simple reading would be to say that Willi-Food “funded itself from the portfolio.” That is not quite right either. Despite NIS 25.3 million of net realizations, current financial assets still increased to NIS 142.9 million from NIS 135.7 million, and total fair-value financial assets increased to NIS 191.9 million from NIS 183.5 million. So this did not look like a liquidation of the liquidity buffer. It looked more like monetization inside a still-large portfolio that was also revaluing upward at the same time.
That is the nuance that matters. Anyone looking only at the balance sheet will see a group with a lot of cash and a large securities book, and correctly conclude that there is no liquidity stress. Anyone looking only at the cash-flow statement will see that the actual cash build was closed mainly through portfolio monetization, and that is also correct. The accurate sentence has to hold both thoughts together: the 2025 business almost funded the year’s real uses, but the meaningful increase in cash was created by selling part of the securities portfolio while the portfolio itself was also moving higher in value.
That distinction matters even more because the group is still in the phase where the new logistics center consumes cash before it delivers the full operating benefit. As long as that remains true, the securities book is not only a value layer on the balance sheet. It is also a flexibility layer that helps the group move through the investment phase without damaging liquidity.
Conclusion
2025 did not reveal liquidity weakness. It revealed the year’s actual funding mechanism. The import and distribution business was strong enough to bring the group close to cash breakeven after real cash uses, but not strong enough to build the increase in cash by itself. That job was done by NIS 25.3 million of net securities realizations.
So the right question for 2026 is not whether Willi-Food can post another strong finance line. The right question is whether operating cash flow, together with a natural decline in CAPEX as the logistics center approaches launch, will leave a meaningfully larger cash surplus before the securities portfolio needs to help again. If that happens, the securities book goes back to being a cushion and an upside layer. If not, it remains in practice one of the year’s funding legs.
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