How New York’s ‘summer camp kings’ left Israeli investors burned

Israeli investors are reeling from the sudden collapse of Simad Holdings, a New York-based summer camp company that plunged into a debt crisis less than six months after raising NIS 620 million in a Tel Aviv bond offering. The company's owners, brothers Michael and David Shabsels, are accused of emptying the firm of its cash, leaving creditors in a hopeless situation and marking one of the fastest crashes in the local stock market's history.

Known as "summer camp kings" in the New York Jewish community, the Shabsels brothers built a reputation as generous donors and had a background in the magazine business before expanding into real estate. However, beneath the surface, they accumulated massive debts estimated at over $1 billion. Their swift downfall has prompted widespread disbelief and numerous questions about how they operated for so long without detection.

Michael Shabsels, 56, the older brother, started his first business, University Sports Publications, in the 1990s while studying economics at Brandeis University. The company published sports magazines focused on college teams and grew to cover over 800 colleges and universities in North America. His younger brother, David, 49, joined the business after studying art and playing college basketball, where he reportedly received a full scholarship.

The story of Simad Holdings' rapid ascent and equally rapid fall is so dramatic that one source close to the business suggested it could be the subject of a movie. The narrative highlights a series of severe irregularities and a failure of watchdogs to prevent the crisis, despite the company winning the confidence of major Israeli investment managers.

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You could make a movie out of this event. So many questions arise, how did the Shabsels brothers manage to operate in such a problematic way under the radar for so long? And how do you get to liabilities like these without anyone stopping for a moment?