Delek Group

Delek Group is a holding company listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and included in the TA-35 Index. The company describes its operations as spanning energy, financial services, and real estate, conducted directly and through subsidiaries and other investees.[1] Its portfolio has changed substantially over time: the group moved from fuel marketing and diversified holdings toward oil and gas, and later expanded its interests in overseas energy, real estate, and financial services.[4][5]

Energy has been central to Delek Group’s public profile, particularly through its role in Israel’s offshore gas sector. Historically, its subsidiaries Delek Drilling and Avner Oil and Gas held interests in fields including Mari-B, Noa, Tamar, Dalit, and Leviathan; in later reporting, NewMed Energy became the group’s principal vehicle for gas activities in and around Israel, while Ithaca Energy served as its North Sea platform.[2][6] The company’s international interests have also included operations and exploration in Cyprus and Canada.[6][7]

Delek Group has not been solely an energy company. Its reported interests have included fuel and lubricant sales, service stations, convenience stores, Israeli real estate, desalination, agriculture, and financial services.[8][9] The breadth of its holdings reflects a strategy that has shifted between diversification and concentration in energy, while its participation in gas development has connected corporate decisions to questions of Israeli energy supply, export markets, competition, and public policy.[1][5]

Delek Group traces its origins to a fuel-marketing business founded in 1951, which the company describes as Israel’s first fuel marketing company. From 1981, it expanded into onshore oil and gas exploration.[1] The group’s present corporate structure emerged later, though sources give different dates: Calcalist says the current publicly traded holding-company structure was incorporated in 1999, while a Globes retrospective says the Delek Group familiar today was established in 2000.[10][11] The Delek share had begun trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in the early 1990s, with an initial public offering dated to 1993.[10]

Yitzhak Tshuva acquired control of Delek in 1998, displacing the Recanati family, which had controlled the company through Discount Investments. A retrospective account says Tshuva acquired the Recanatis’ stake and reached an 88% holding; the company associates the change in control with an expansion of exploration and a strategic partnership with Noble Energy to pursue offshore gas in the Eastern Mediterranean.[11][1] The group’s history thus includes both the creation of a holding-company structure and a change in controlling ownership that preceded its major role in offshore energy development.[1][11]

During the 2010s, Delek’s businesses extended across energy and infrastructure, finance and insurance, automobiles, and other sectors. A 2015 account described the company as shifting away from diversified holdings toward oil and gas development, a change linked in later reporting to the 2009 Tamar discovery.[5] In 2014, the group considered separately listing its oil and gas activities, with the stated aim of maximizing shareholder value and making the assets more accessible to international investors. The proposed new energy company would have included Delek Energy Systems, Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration, Cohen Development & Industrial Buildings, Navitas Petroleum, certain lease rights, and energy-sector royalties; management preferred a London listing, while Delek Group shares and bonds would remain traded in Tel Aviv.[12]

The portfolio was reorganized again in later years. Delek says it acquired full ownership of Ithaca Energy in the North Sea in 2017, describing the purchase as a source of independent operating capabilities and a platform for international expansion.[1] In 2019, the group sold most of its non-energy subsidiaries and raised funds to buy North Sea oil assets from Chevron, according to reporting at the time.[13] The group also sold 70% of Delek Israel in 2020 as part of efforts to address debt and release Delek Drilling holdings from a bondholder lien.[14][15]

The company says it acquired a controlling stake in Mehadrin in 2023, expanding into real estate and agriculture, and gained control of Isracard in 2025, broadening its financial-services activities.[1] Delek’s current business profile therefore combines energy with interests outside the sector, although the relative weight and organization of those holdings have evolved.[1][6]

Delek Group’s Israeli and regional energy activities have been conducted chiefly through NewMed Energy, formerly Delek Drilling, while its overseas activity has included Ithaca Energy in the North Sea. The group’s 2025 interim financial statements identified NewMed as its principal vehicle for oil and gas activity in and around Israel and Ithaca as its North Sea vehicle; they reported that Delek indirectly held approximately 52.22% of Ithaca as of the report’s approval date.[6] The company’s homepage gives a different figure of 50% for its Ithaca interest, while reporting in 2024 said Delek was expected to hold about 52.7% after Ithaca’s combination with Eni UK assets. These figures relate to different sources and reporting contexts.[16][17]

In Israel, Delek’s earlier involvement in offshore fields was carried through subsidiaries including Delek Drilling and Avner Oil and Gas. A 2012 analysis characterized Delek Group as the principal Israeli energy company involved in offshore natural gas and listed combined Delek and subsidiary working interests of 52.9% in Mari-B, 52.94% in Noa, 45.67% in Leviathan, and 31.25% each in Tamar and Dalit.[2] These figures describe reported interests at that time, not the group’s present ownership. Another later report described Delek as holding a 22% stake in Tamar in 2021, while reporting on the group’s later strategy says it sold all of its Tamar share and retained involvement in Leviathan.[18][5]

The offshore gas industry developed through a series of discoveries and projects. Offshore gas was discovered in 1999, and the Mari-B field had supplied gas since 2004, according to a 2012 account.[2] The group’s own history describes the Noa discovery and Yam Tethys project as helping establish the commercial viability of offshore gas and Israel’s natural-gas market.[1] Tamar was discovered in 2009 and Leviathan in 2010; Delek and its U.S. partner Noble Energy were associated with these discoveries, as well as the 2012 discovery of Karish.[5]

The estimates published for the fields have varied by source and date. A 2012 report gave Tamar an estimated 9 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas and Leviathan 17 tcf; a 2014 analysis reported a 22-tcf estimate for Leviathan and described Tamar as having been brought onstream the previous year.[2][3] A Ben-Gurion University research abstract describes Leviathan as discovered in late 2010 by a venture involving Noble Energy as operator, Delek Drilling, and Ratio Oil Exploration; it gives resources of more than 33 tcf in place and more than 21 tcf recoverable, and records a projection that production would begin by the end of 2019 at a capacity of 1.2 billion cubic feet per day.[19] Those are date-specific estimates and projections, not interchangeable statements of current reserves or production.

The group’s present energy interests extend beyond Israel. Delek says NewMed conducts natural-gas operations in Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean, while Ithaca explores for, produces, and sells oil and gas in the UK North Sea. Delek also lists InPlay Oil, a publicly traded Canadian company focused on onshore light oil and natural gas in Alberta, among its energy interests.[7] Delek’s current pages list NewMed’s interests as 45.3% in Leviathan and 30% in Cyprus’s Aphrodite field.[17][20]

The company’s website identifies Ithaca interests in the Captain, Stella, Vorlich, Glenlivet, and Foinaven fields in the UK North Sea, alongside a 20% interest in Rosebank and full ownership of Cambo. Its homepage lists Delek Group and Eni as Ithaca’s principal shareholders, at 50% and 38%, respectively.[17] Separately, in April 2024 Ithaca agreed to combine almost all of Eni’s UK-based North Sea oil and gas assets with its own in a share-based transaction valued at about £754 million ($938 million). Delek was expected to remain Ithaca’s controlling owner, with about 52.7% of its share capital after the combination; Eni UK was to hold 37.3% and the public 10%. The combined group’s 37 producing assets were expected to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the second half of 2024, with potential production of 150,000 barrels of oil per day by the early 2030s.[16]

In October 2026, reporting described Ithaca as buying producing Canadian oil assets for $860 million, involving 103 million barrels at an average price of $8 per barrel. Up to a further $250 million could be paid depending on oil prices over the following 27 months. Ithaca planned to finance the transaction through reserves-based lending and local Canadian financing secured against the assets; the acquisition was projected to add 30,000 barrels per day during 2027–2031 and bring expected production to 140,000–150,000 barrels per day.[21] These were reported transaction terms and production projections.

The development of offshore gas created opportunities for exports as well as domestic supply. In February 2018, an Israeli-American consortium led by Noble Energy and Delek Drilling announced gas-sale agreements with Egypt’s Dolphinus Holdings, covering gas from Tamar and Leviathan. The agreements were reported to total 64 billion cubic meters over ten years; an INSS analysis described expected deliveries of 3.5 billion cubic meters per year from each field, beginning in 2019, and estimated the value at $15 billion.[22][23]

A related project concerned the pipeline connecting Egypt and Israel. In September 2018, East Mediterranean Pipeline (EMED), in which Delek held 25%, purchased 39% of Egyptian company Eastern Mediterranean Gas for $518 million. EMG was among the owners of a pipeline route from Egypt through el-Arish, with branches to Aqaba and Ashkelon. The transaction gave Delek the exclusive right to operate the 90-kilometer el-Arish–Ashkelon section, subject to Egyptian and Israeli approvals, operational checks, repairs, and upgrades.[22]

A 2026 report said a new undersea pipeline between Ashdod and Ashkelon had been completed, increasing the EMG pipeline’s capacity to transport gas to Egypt from about 6.5 billion to 8.5 billion cubic meters per year. The same report said Leviathan’s export capacity was expected to reach about 6.5 billion cubic meters annually, in addition to roughly 2 billion cubic meters then exported by a route through Jordan and northern Egypt. It described the pipeline expansion as an initial stage in implementing a larger export agreement; the committed annual volume was reported as rising from about 4.7 billion to 6.7 billion cubic meters once required conditions were met.[24]

In August 2025, the Leviathan partners signed an agreement to supply Egypt with 130 billion cubic meters of natural gas through 2040, or until the contracted quantities were fulfilled. The deal was valued at $35 billion and described as Israel’s largest export agreement. NewMed, formerly Delek Drilling and part of Delek Group, holds a 45.3% stake in Leviathan.[25][20] The reported plan divided deliveries into a first phase of 20 billion cubic meters expected to begin in 2026 and a second phase of 110 billion cubic meters contingent on expanded production and construction of a new pipeline.[25]

Delek’s regional reach also includes Cyprus. The company reports that Aphrodite, in Block 12 of Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone, was discovered in 2011. Appraisal drilling confirmed about 98 billion cubic meters of contingent resources, with potential for an additional 26 billion cubic meters.[20] Delek’s company history places the discovery of Aphrodite within its regional expansion, alongside its Israeli gas interests.[1] In October 2023, NewMed, BP, and SOCAR were awarded six exploration licenses in Area I of Israel’s exclusive economic zone, with respective interests of 33.33%, 33.33%, and 33.34%; SOCAR was designated operator.[20]

The company’s reported regional activities have also encompassed Morocco and Bulgaria. Its 2025 interim statements identified NewMed’s activities in Israel, Cyprus, Morocco, and Bulgaria, as well as Ithaca’s North Sea operations.[6] These projects illustrate the group’s reliance on partnerships, concessions, pipelines, and international sales alongside ownership interests in producing fields.

Delek Group’s holdings have included businesses beyond exploration and production. A 2017 BESA Center report described it as one of Israel’s largest holding companies and said it jointly and equally owned IDE Technologies with Israel Chemicals Ltd. IDE was identified as the developer of Israel’s largest desalination project at the time. A 2016 bid by Chinese state-owned CCCC to acquire IDE for $650 million was rejected.[9]

Delek’s reported Israeli interests have also included real-estate rights through Delek Properties and fuel and lubricant sales, service stations, and convenience stores through its Delek Israel holdings.[8] The company says its 2023 acquisition of control in Mehadrin expanded its activities into real estate and agriculture.[1] Reporting in 2026 described the group as controlling Isracard and Mehadrin, holding a stake in Delek Israel, and conducting oil and gas exploration and production in Israel and overseas.[8]

The Isracard acquisition marked a renewed expansion into financial services. Delek’s interim financial report says it completed the investment in July 2025, acquiring approximately 40.07% of Isracard’s share capital and becoming its controlling shareholder. The investment was approximately NIS 1.358 billion, and Delek said it would consolidate Isracard’s financial statements beginning in the third quarter of 2025.[6] The report describes Isracard as a publicly traded company whose activities include issuing, processing, and acquiring credit cards and providing credit to private and commercial customers.[6]

In 2026, Ynetnews reported that Tshuva acquired a 40% stake in Isracard for NIS 1.3 billion and that Delek acquired the digital bank Ash, founded by Nir Zuk, in a deal estimated at NIS 500 million. Delek also invested NIS 120 million in eOS, the technology platform behind the bank, and was reported to be in talks to acquire the Blink stock-trading app; the Blink transaction was described as negotiations rather than a completed acquisition.[26] The report identified Idan Wallace as Delek Group’s CEO and said Tshuva aimed to combine digital-banking capabilities with Isracard’s payment infrastructure to compete with traditional banks.[26]

Through Isracard, Tshuva was also reported to have acquired Fly Card, the credit-card operation connected to El Al’s frequent-flyer program. The operation had about 500,000 cardholders, and the transaction was valued at about NIS 1.3 billion over ten years.[26] These developments extended Delek’s activities beyond its historical energy and fuel businesses, though the sources describe several acquisitions and strategic plans at specific points in time rather than a fixed portfolio.

Financial results reported for 2025 showed net profit of NIS 3.3 billion, more than twice the NIS 1.4 billion reported for 2024. Revenue across business segments totaled NIS 16.1 billion, compared with NIS 12 billion in 2024: Israeli and nearby oil-and-gas exploration and production contributed NIS 3 billion, North Sea oil and gas NIS 10.2 billion, other segments NIS 1.1 billion, and financial activity NIS 1.8 billion.[8] The same report said Delek distributed about NIS 1 billion in dividends in 2025 and recorded an 8% dividend yield.[8]

For the first half of 2025, Delek’s interim statements reported revenue of NIS 7.358 billion, compared with NIS 5.479 billion in the first half of 2024. The report attributed changes in income partly to a suspension of Leviathan gas production during the second quarter of 2025, associating it with a shutdown during Operation Rising Lion and a planned shutdown for construction of a third pipeline. It also cited lower oil prices, financial-instrument revaluations, and a change in Delek’s Ithaca holding.[6] For the second quarter of 2026, Globes reported attributable net profit of NIS 314 million, up 78.4% year on year, and revenue of about NIS 1 billion.[27]

The group’s financial position came under significant strain in 2020 amid falling oil prices and the COVID-19 crisis. In March, Globes reported that Delek’s share price had fallen 60% since the beginning of the year, reducing its market capitalization to NIS 2.5 billion. Debt due to bondholders and banks in 2020–2022 totaled NIS 6.5 billion, including NIS 6.1 billion owed to bondholders, and the company was especially exposed after buying Chevron’s North Sea assets for $1.75 billion the previous year.[28] These are historical figures and do not describe the company’s present financial position.

In May 2020, Delek agreed to a temporary arrangement with bondholders that gave it time to reorganize rather than immediately face repayment demands. Reported terms required the group to raise NIS 400 million by the end of the year; the bondholders’ representative said failure to meet the deadline would create grounds to demand immediate repayment.[29] In October, Delek agreed to sell 70% of Delek Israel to Lahav LR Real Estate and Uri Mantzur for NIS 525 million in cash, valuing the business at NIS 750 million. The proceeds were intended to help repay bank debt and release Delek Drilling holdings from a lien held by bondholders.[15]

Another report gave the sale’s value as NIS 750 million and said it was expected to yield Delek Group NIS 630 million, allowing it to repay remaining bank debt of NIS 342 million and release Delek Drilling from the lien.[14] By October 2020, Delek said it had repaid all its bank debt early; the amount outstanding in March had been about NIS 1.2 billion. The company said it would use proceeds connected with Leviathan royalties and a bond offering to fund future bond repayments.[30]

Yitzhak Sharon Tshuva is identified as Delek Group’s controlling shareholder and a director since 2014. The company’s board page lists Udi Erez as chairman since 2022, while its management information identifies Idan Wallace as chief executive officer, appointed in January 2020.[31] Globes reporting in 2026 likewise described the group as controlled by Tshuva and managed by Idan Wallace.[27]

Delek’s businesses operate through a combination of subsidiaries, controlled companies, and investees. In energy, NewMed Energy is the principal vehicle for gas activity in and around Israel, while Ithaca conducts most of the group’s overseas oil and gas operations in the North Sea.[6] In financial services, the 2025 report records Delek’s acquisition of control in Isracard; other reported interests have included real estate, agriculture, fuel retail, and convenience stores.[6][8] The precise structure and ownership levels can change as transactions are completed or holdings are reorganized.

Delek Group’s historical importance in Israel is closely connected to the growth of the country’s offshore natural-gas sector. Through Delek Drilling and Avner, the group held substantial interests in early fields and in discoveries that later became central to domestic production and export plans.[2][5] The company’s own history credits the Noa discovery and Yam Tethys project with helping demonstrate offshore gas’s commercial viability, while later development of Tamar and Leviathan helped establish the scale of Israel’s offshore resource base.[1]

The group’s activities have also linked Israeli energy production with regional infrastructure and commerce. Its participation in the EMG pipeline transaction, gas-sale agreements with Egypt, and the later Leviathan export agreement placed its interests within cross-border commercial arrangements involving Israel, Egypt, and other regional partners.[22][25] The transactions depended not only on field development but also on pipeline capacity, regulatory approvals, production expansion, and the security and commercial conditions required to deliver gas.[22][25]

Delek’s wider development illustrates a move from fuel marketing and diversified holdings toward a multinational energy-centered group, followed by expansion into financial services and other sectors.[1][5] Its acquisition of North Sea interests through Ithaca gave it an overseas operating platform, while the Isracard and Mehadrin investments broadened its activities beyond energy.[1][6] At the same time, the group’s role in a strategically important industry brought its ownership decisions and commercial arrangements into public and regulatory debate.

Delek Group’s natural-gas interests became the subject of a major dispute over market concentration, competition, domestic prices, and the division of value between companies and the state. In December 2014, Israel’s Antitrust Authority announced that it would not approve a consent decree for Leviathan’s development, citing concerns about monopolistic effects on the energy market. The ensuing dispute delayed development plans and left uncertainty over regulatory resolution and possible restraint-of-trade charges.[32][32]

A Washington Institute analysis likewise described the Antitrust Authority as reconsidering an arrangement under which Noble Energy and Delek could retain Tamar and Leviathan if they sold Karish and Tanin. It said the move cast doubt on Leviathan’s development timetable and intensified public debate over gas prices and the profits expected from the industry.[3] The same analysis described Tshuva as a symbol, for some Israelis, of broader economic inequality.[3]

Proposals to resolve the dispute included divestment and changes to ownership. In February 2015, a government committee proposed that Delek could retain its Leviathan stake if it completely divested from Tamar, while Noble Energy sold part of its Tamar stake; both companies rejected the proposal.[32] A draft 2015 gas framework would have required Delek to transfer all its Tamar rights to a third party within 72 months and Noble to reduce its Tamar holdings to 25%. It also proposed that the existing owners sell Karish and Tanin within 14 months of approval.[33]

The Israeli government approved a deal in December 2015 allowing a consortium led by Noble Energy and Delek to develop Leviathan. The arrangement included some domestic price regulation and commitments by Noble and Delek to sell or reduce stakes in other offshore projects.[34] The deal drew widespread concern about pricing and competition, demonstrations, and a challenge in Israel’s High Court of Justice. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the arrangement was necessary for energy self-sufficiency, while opponents objected to its effects on competition and prices.[34] The Congressional Research Service said the government used a previously unused national-security provision to overcome objections from the antitrust office.[34]

Regulatory requirements continued to shape Delek’s reported holdings. In 2021, Delek signed a memorandum of understanding under which Mubadala’s energy arm tentatively agreed to acquire Delek’s 22% Tamar stake for a proposed $1.1 billion transaction. The stated purpose was to help Delek meet Israeli anti-monopoly requirements because it also had an investment in Leviathan; the proposed deal was conditional and described as tentative.[18] The gas framework and its effect on competition remained subjects of disagreement, including debate over whether the measures adequately opened the market to new participants.[5]

Other questions concern how to interpret dated figures and company disclosures. Delek’s interest in Tamar is reported as 31.25% in a 2012 table and 22% in a 2021 account, while later reporting says it sold all of its Tamar share; these are figures from different periods, not a single current ownership statement.[2][18] Reserve estimates for Tamar and Leviathan also differ across dated reports, and should be treated as estimates published at those times rather than current figures.[2][3]

The 2025 interim financial report records a petition to Israel’s High Court challenging the Bank of Israel control permit for Delek’s Isracard transaction. The court dismissed the petitioner’s interim-injunction motion on August 3, 2025, while the petitioner said on August 10 that it maintained the petition. Delek stated that, based on its assessment and counsel’s opinion, the allegations lacked legal basis and the petition was more likely than not to be dismissed; that prediction is the company’s position, not a court finding.[6]