Mordechai Elgarabli, the CEO and co-controlling shareholder of Israeli pharmaceutical company Rakeh, is leaving the chief executive post after serving in it since 2015. Before that, he chaired the company for about 20 years. He told the company he was stepping down for personal reasons.
Rakeh began as a local pharmacy in Jerusalem in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Elgarabli and his wife, Georgette, bought the company, expanded it into manufacturing, and later listed it on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Today, Rakeh's market value stands at about 123 million shekels. FIMI is the co-controlling shareholder, after investing in the company in 2015, and now holds 42.7% of the shares. Elgarabli and his wife together hold 30.3%.
The company said chairman Abraham Biger was named acting CEO for now, without extra compensation, pending approval by the general meeting expected in the coming days. The board also set up a search committee to find a permanent replacement. Rakeh said Biger’s interim role will be subject to shareholder approval.
Elgarabli, born in 1944, immigrated to Israel from Morocco, studied economics and mathematics at the Hebrew University, and later served one term in the Knesset for Dash from 1977 to 1981. The couple's son, Lt. Oudi Yehuda Elgarabli, was killed in Lebanon in 1994. Rakeh now operates four production sites and says it makes 200 million tablets, 50 million capsules and 20 million finished products a year. In 2025, pharmaceutical revenue was 208 million shekels, distribution added 75.8 million, and the special activity, a lottery-distribution franchise in the Jerusalem, Modi'in and surrounding area, contributed 17 million. Total revenue was about 301 million shekels, with a net loss attributable to shareholders of 17.8 million shekels and positive EBITDA of 24.6 million shekels.
