BIG Shopping Centers (TASE: BIG): Yehuda Naftali's Open-Air Empire — BIG Fashion Glilot, 46 Israeli Centers, and the US Portfolio Wind-Down

Founded 1994 in Herzliya by Yehuda Naftali to import American-style open-air power centers into Israel. 62 projects across Israel, the United States, Serbia, Montenegro, France, and Eastern Europe. BIG Fashion Glilot — Israel's largest premium open-air lifestyle center — opened February 2025 with NIS 2 billion invested. Market cap approximately NIS 18.7 billion. TA-125 member.

BIG Shopping Centers Ltd. (TASE: BIG) is the Israeli commercial real estate operator that built the domestic open-air, power-center format. Founded 1994 in Herzliya by Yehuda Naftali on the premise that Israel's enclosed-mall market had left room for American-style open-air retail. Thirty years later, BIG operates or has ownership positions in 62 projects across six countries — 46 operational shopping centers and 15 under development. Market capitalization approximately NIS 18.7 billion. TA-125 member. Yehuda Naftali remains the strategic principal; Eitan Bar Zeev — a Hebrew University economist and former president of McDonald's Israel — leads the group as CEO.

BIG Fashion Glilot: the 2025 flagship

BIG Fashion Glilot opened February 2025 in Ramat HaSharon at the Glilot Junction — the northern gateway to the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. The 43,000 sqm GLA lifestyle center is Israel's largest premium open-air retail development, built on a 44-dunam mixed-use site alongside a 43-floor office tower of 75,000 sqm and 4,000 parking spaces. Total investment approximately NIS 2 billion (~$540 million). The architecture departs from the enclosed-mall convention: two parallel urban high streets connected by three central plazas — the same design language Simon Property Group and Federal Realty have used to reset American open-air lifestyle economics over the past fifteen years. Anchor tenants include the largest Zara in Israel at 4,800 sqm, the country's first OYSHO, and a 6,000 sqm Fox Group footprint covering Nike, Mango, and Foot Locker. The property directly pressured Melisron's Ofer Ramat Aviv Mall and Israel Land Development Co.'s Seven Star Mall on the same coastal corridor — Factory 54 relocated to Glilot from Herzliya Arena as the first visible casualty.

The Israeli portfolio: BIG Fashion brand and the power-center grid

BIG's Israeli footprint is built around the BIG Fashion brand — the premium tier — layered above a broader base of community and regional power centers. The Israeli portfolio spans malls, mixed-use assets, offices, residential-for-rent, senior housing, medical facilities, hotel components, and renewable-energy investments. The mixed-use pivot over the past decade is what distinguishes BIG from the pure-play mall REITs — combining retail with residential, office, hospitality, and increasingly solar generation on its own roof stock. That diversification lowers the duration risk on retail as a category and is what allowed BIG to hold its 2024-2025 revenue print above pre-war levels while enclosed-mall peers absorbed a footfall correction.

The US wind-down: from $1.1B in disposals back to $550M

BIG USA — the Phoenix-headquartered US subsidiary — spent the 2010s acquiring lifestyle and community centers in high-growth Sun Belt markets. Since June 2021, the strategy has reversed. BIG USA has sold 18 US shopping centers for over $1.1 billion cumulatively. The remaining US portfolio sits at 7 shopping centers totaling 2.5 million square feet with aggregate value over $550 million. Michael Bar leads the US business, having relocated in 2017 to run the divestiture program. The US wind-down effectively returned capital to the Israeli parent to fund BIG Fashion Glilot and the broader domestic pipeline — a rare case of an Israeli commercial real estate operator running the cross-border capital cycle in the opposite direction from the sponsors profiled in Olam's TASE dollar-bond sponsor map.

International: Serbia, Montenegro, France, Eastern Europe

Beyond Israel and the US, BIG operates in Serbia (where its largest center outside the US remains the operational anchor), Montenegro, France, and additional Eastern European markets. The Serbian center opened in the 2010s as BIG's first international bet outside North America, and Eran Levy — now BIG USA COO — ran it before relocating to Phoenix. The European expansion is still in the earlier phase relative to the Israeli and US portfolios, but represents the growth vector against a maturing domestic market and is the segment Naftali has publicly identified as the multi-decade compounding opportunity.

Yehuda Naftali: the founder-principal architecture

Naftali built BIG at a moment — the early 1990s — when Israeli retail was still dominated by the covered-mall format that Ofer, Britannia, and Africa Israel had assembled through the 1980s. His thesis that open-air American-format retail could work in Israel was, at the time, contested. Thirty years later, BIG Fashion Glilot is the definitive validation of that thesis and the reference property for how premium retail now works in the Tel Aviv metro. Naftali remains the largest shareholder and the strategic principal. BIG's listed structure — with Eitan Bar Zeev as CEO alongside Naftali's continued involvement — mirrors the founder-plus-operator model that Wertheimer, Ofer, and Federmann have all run through their listed vehicles.

At a glance

Ticker: TASE: BIG · TA-125
Founded: 1994 by Yehuda Naftali · HQ 7 Yad Haruzim Street, Herzliya
CEO: Eitan Bar Zeev · BIG USA President: Michael Bar
Portfolio: 62 projects: 46 operational + 15 under development
Countries: Israel · United States (Phoenix) · Serbia · Montenegro · France · Eastern Europe
Market cap: ~NIS 18.7 billion
Flagship 2025: BIG Fashion Glilot — 43,000 sqm GLA · NIS 2B investment · 160 stores · largest Zara in Israel (4,800 sqm)
US portfolio: 7 centers · 2.5M sqft · ~$550M aggregate value (post-$1.1B divestiture)
Mixed-use segments: Retail · offices · residential-for-rent · senior housing · medical · hotels · renewables

The Israeli mall stack: Melisron, BIG, Amot, Azrieli

BIG's competitive set inside Israeli commercial real estate sits alongside Melisron (premium enclosed malls, Ramat Aviv anchor), Amot Investments (mid-market office and commercial), and Azrieli Group's commercial arm (the Azrieli-branded flagship malls). BIG's open-air format has held pricing power against enclosed centers as consumer preference has moved toward outdoor lifestyle retail — the same trend that produced the "de-malling" of American secondary markets in the 2010s. Glilot is BIG's bet that the Israeli consumer market has now made the same shift at the premium tier. Read alongside the Israeli Real Estate 2026 guide and the Olam Index 2026: Real Estate for the full commercial-tier context.