Max Stock: Suspicion of large-scale evasion of customs payments

As part of an ongoing investigation against the Max Stock company regarding customs and imports, representatives of the Haifa Customs House arrived at the company's offices yesterday, searched its documents and asked an officer. This is a suspicion of large-scale evasion of customs payments. The tax investigators who simply about the company took nothing but checked the volume of the goods and questioned some of the company executives.
About a month ago, the company reported that the stock stores' activity during periods when most stores were forced to close due to corona restrictions, boosted Max Stock sales in 2020 by 36% to NIS 1.01 billion and allowed the chain to sign the year with a 24.6% increase in net profit. At NIS 87.6 million.
Same-store sales, which also operated during 2019, grew in the past year by 11% compared to the same period in 2019, mainly as a result of increased demand for pharma products, cleaning and laundry, kitchen, tools and electricity which resulted from high consumption of products related to public stay at home .
In 2017, the Apax Fund, headed by Zehavit Cohen, acquired control of the chain with an investment of about NIS 170 million in exchange for about 55% of Max Stock's shares, which reflected a value of about NIS 300 million for the chain. In September this year, Apax issued the chain's shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a value of NIS 1.7 billion. The chain has about 50 branches.
Max Stock said in a response: "We have no further information beyond what was published in the immediate report including we have no additional information regarding the nature, scope or subject matter of the test. The company participates and will continue to fully cooperate with the test, while maintaining proper business conduct."