Israel's stop hairdresser closes up shop, flees country

After getting into huge debt, Shuki Zikri shut down his business and fled Israel; black market criminals threatened his life.

By GLOBES
Shuki Zikri 311 (photo credit: Courtesy of Shuki Zikri)
Shuki Zikri 311
(photo credit: Courtesy of Shuki Zikri)
Shuki Zikri has shut down his business and fled Israel after black market criminals, to whom Zikri owes more than NIS 10 million, threatened his life, Yediot Aharonot reported.
On Wednesday, Shuki Zikri announced that he is closing his nationwide hair-design chain due to debts. Yediot Aharonot reported that although Zikri was sick at the beginning of the week, he went to work anyway.
Two days later, though, he did not arrive at his offices.
Employees were sure that Zikri failed to appear due to his illness. However, when his sister, who is the reception manager, also failed to appear, questions began being asked.
“We were in shock,” employees told the newspaper when they were informed that Zikri would not be returning.
“We were completely surprised. We have a feeling that he also didn’t have any idea this was going to happen to him. He has been in a great mood and has not displayed any signs of distress.”
However, some employees claim that Zikri was in over head, and this was why he got into trouble. He recently launched a luxury boutique salon in Tel Aviv.
“Who needs this grand palace?” one of his employees asked. “We were a small and cohesive family and now everything has been ruined.”
One of the chain’s hair stylists said, “Shuki made the salary of a plastic surgeon. Why did he need to get into all of this mess?” Earlier this week, Zikri released a statement relating to the shutdown due to “financial difficulties.”
“After more than 20 years of thriving and breakthrough business in hair design in Israel and internationally, where we led in every field and channel, we created trends and set standards both in terms of size of the chain, the haircut, schools, products, displays in Israel and around the world, the language of design, the collection, and at the level of profession and service. We are forced to announce with great sadness the cessation of operations by the Shuki Zikri chain, due to financial difficulties,” said the statement.
Zikri revoked professional responsibility, both directly and indirectly, for all activities of the business as well as its brand, which he had built over the years.
Shuki Zikri founded the chain in 1985, and it currently includes salons and hair-design schools as well as cosmetics and manicure and pedicure departments.