Gideon Tadmor and his partners in the founding of energy exploration partnership Navitas Petroleum LP (TASE: NVPT) are starting to scent the big money that will flow into their pockets in the coming years. The partnership’s participation units were promoted to the Tel Aviv 35 Index list last week, after rising by over 1,100% since they were floated in 2017, bringing the partnership’s market cap to NIS 9 billion. In the same period, the Tel Aviv 125 Index rose by 107% and the Oil & Gas Index rose by 160%.
Navitas’s accession to the leading index happened just before the start of gas production from its main reservoir, Shenandoah, in the Gulf of America (Gulf of Mexico) in June. This is not just a symbolic milestone. Tadmor and three other founders, through the “general partner” that they hold, will enjoy a “super royalty” of 5% of Navitas’s revenue. The royalty is expected to amount to about NIS 200 million annually.
Tadmor himself, who serves as chairperson of Navitas, holds 62.5% of the general partner, which means that the royalty will be worth NIS 126 million a year to him. His three partners – Yacob (Koby) Katz, Chanan Reichman, and Chanan Wolf – each hold 12.5%, and, if the forecasts materialize, will each receive NIS 25 million a year. Katz, who serves as deputy chairperson at Navitas, has been with Tadmor since they worked together in Delek Group’s gas business, and before that was director general of the Ministry of National Infrastructures. Reichman is also a former senior manager at Delek Group, while Wolf was head of Capital Markets at Ernst & Young Israel.
1% of revenue to the state
Navitas, which bought 49% of the Shenandoah reservoir in 2018-2020 for just $1.8 million, expects $700 million revenue from it this year. In the first full year of operation (2026) revenue is expected to be $1.1 billion (NIS 4 billion).
At least according to the partnership’s presentation to investors, these sums will only grow in the coming years, when Navitas develops its other reservoirs, headed by Sea Lion in the South Atlantic from 2028. The State of Israel, incidentally, will receive royalties of 1% from the partnership’s revenue.
The fat royalties come on top of the huge value to which the holdings of the participation unit holders in Navitas have risen. Tadmor holds 11% of the participation units, with a market value of about NIS 1 billion, while Koby Katz holds 1.84%, worth NIS 165 million.
What of the other founders? In October 2023, Wolf, who was formerly deputy CEO of Navitas but who no longer works there, held slightly under 2% of the units, which, unless he has sold them, are currently worth NIS 180 million. Reichman, formerly CEO of the partnership, held units with a current value of NIS 200 million at the end of 2021.
Someone else who has made large profits on paper on Navitas is Amit Kornhauser, the current CEO, who holds 0.8% of the units, worth NIS 70 million.
Navitas will enjoy several tax-free years, since, according to its financials, it has a tax asset in the shape of $456 million cumulative losses, as at the end of 2024. When the company does start to pay tax, it will do so mainly in the US, with only a small portion payable in Israel.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on May 12, 2025.
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