Mordechai Einhorn, who was named executive managing director of the Bank Leumi six months ago, resigned Sunday and acknowledged that he did so under pressure from the bank’s employes.
They demanded he be ousted or resign in exchange for their cooperation with the bank’s new Board of Directors. Einhorn told the Board members at the start of a meeting Sunday that he understood their sentiments and preferred not to be the cause of continuing unrest at Israel’s largest bank. No successor has been named.
Bank Leumi has undergone a complete change of management since the disclosure last month of the excessive severance pay and pension awarded to its former chairman and chief executive officer, Ernst Japhet, when he resigned last spring. Japhet was forced to leave because of his involvement in the 1983 bank shares manipulation scandal.
Einhorn took over part of Japhet’s duties. Israel Radio quoted an unnamed director of the bank as saying employe complaints had a “degree of legitimacy” because Einhorn was among those who “skimmed off the cream while demanding cutbacks in salaries.”
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