I am violating one of my shibboleths, a comment made ages ago by a young Irish-American reader: "Neva sell Teva."

With the board and top management in disarray following the removal of CEO Dr Jeremy Levin who crafted the recovery plan for the beleagured Israeli generics and multiple-sclerosis drug company in the 18 months since he came on board, I want to take profits lest they disappear. Teva now confronts a strike in Israel over about 500 layoffs; criticism from the Jerusalem government over its "American" executive and board pay scale and its legal Israeli  tax breaks: and board members talking to the press against one another.

Now Levin global talent, new-hires from the drug industry, are trying to decide if they will stay with Teva without their mentor. And the dysfunctional board has to find a new Levin, a top-rated international drug executive willing to move to Israel to run Teva--after the last one was unceremoniously ousted. Levin, a South African-born British subject and Zionist, trained as an MD and PhD at top Oxbridge universities, was head-hunted from Bristol-Myers-Squibb. Levin was ousted (according to the latest Israeli rumors) for being too conciliatory to Israel's left-leading Histadrut union over manning levels. Board Chairman Dr Philip Frost, an American serial drug entrepreneur who sold Ivax to Teva and then became its largest shareholder, opposed Levin negotiating with the union.

Dr Frost has already turned down the job (if it was offered to him) because he prefers to live in Florida rather than Israel.

I fear they will name another Israeli who got a good reputation during his Army career, because he could command youngsters. This is not an indicator of management expertise at a complicated international company such as Teva has become.

Meanwhile the old problems of expiring patents for its MS drug Copaxone (starting as soon as April 2014) and the mishmash of poorly integrated acquisitions made by Levin's predecessors Israel Makov  and Shlomo Yanai and their sidekick, the former CFO, now temporary CEO, Eyal Desheh, remain to trouble Teva. The names being batted around in Israel are Desheh and Erez Vigodman, both Israelis with accounting backgrounds who have worked at other Israeli companies, but not big kahunas like Teva.

For tax reasons I am selling shares in my IRA rather than those I own outright.