Shufersal Q3 profit edges up

Sagi sells stake in Playtech

Shufersal, the country’s largest supermarket chain, said on Sunday that net profit rose slightly in the third quarter on record revenue as it integrated a newly purchased drugstore chain. The company posted net profit of NIS 64 million ($17m.) versus NIS 63m. a year earlier. Revenue increased 9.4% to a record NIS 3.3b. as same store sales rose 3.6%.

Shufersal last year agreed to buy New-Pharm Drugstores, which operates dozens of branches in Israel, for NIS 130m.

Expenses rose to NIS 763m. from NIS 664m. due to the integration of New-Pharm and to costs associated with the launching of a new credit card as well as a rise in salary expenses. Holding firm Discount Investment Corp. in June reduced its stake in Shufersal and no longer controls the company.

Meanwhile, Playtech’s founder Teddy Sagi has sold out of the gambling software company he set up 19 years ago by offloading a stake worth around $87m.

Sagi’s Brickington Trading has offloaded about 15.2 million shares, equivalent to 4.8% of the London-listed company, his family office, Globe Invest, said Friday.

The stock that the Israeli entrepreneur sold is worth approximately £68m. ($87.2m.) at the current market price of about 450 pence a share, according to Reuters calculations.

It marks the end of Sagi’s involvement in Playtech, which he set up in 1999 and floated on the London stock market in 2006. He has been cutting his stake in recent years and the latest disposal follows a sale earlier this month.