By Golden Sibanda
KINGDOM Financial Holdings founder Mr Nigel Chanakira was last week non-committal on whether he had managed to come up with a plan to raise US$15 million Meikles requested for him to regain control of his business empire.
Mr Chanakira was expected to have come up with an acceptable plan to raise the money by August 5 this month to reclaim a majority stake in the financial group.
Failure by Mr Chanakira to come up with a plan may force Meikles to call for an extraordinary general meeting to effect the demerger of Kingdom from Meikles with Mr John Moxon retaining his 43,9 percent stake in the group. In the case that Mr Moxon maintains his shareholding, he would be entitled to two board appointments to the Kingdom board as the major shareholder.
Responding to an enquiry by Herald Business a spokesman for Mr Chanakira said: “The process to finalise the demerger is on course. However, due to the need to allow the due process to be completed, Mr Chanakira would rather prefer not to discuss the issue at this stage.”
Meikles Limited chairman Mr Farai Rwodzi told shareholders at the last AGM that if Mr Chanakira fails to meet the deadline, an EGM would follow to bring the case to finality.
“We have put a peg to resolve this issue once and for all,” Mr Rwodzi told shareholders at last month’s meeting. It is understood that several meetings were held to finalise the divorce process but “were inconclusive” due to lack of a firm proposal from the Kingdom board.
A successful demerger of the entities would result in separate relisting of Kingdom on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange since its delisting in 2008 prompted by the merger of Meikles and the financial services group. Bringing the issue to finality would be good news to all shareholders, especially those for Kingdom, who have often complained about delays in separating the two.
Mr Chanakira who has been given three different chances to come up with a firm proposal to gain control of the financial services group has been on an international charm offensive to raise the funds to regain Kingdom. The Kingdom board at one time indicated that they were pursuing a private placement to buy out Mr Moxon.
It is also understood that negotiations with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe regarding the US$22,5 million lodged with the central bank are at an advanced stage. The demerger is part of the solutions to end the contentious dispute between Mr Moxon and Mr Chanakira.
Kingdom Meikles Limited — a merger of Kingdom and Meikles, Tanganda and Cotton Printers in 2008 was taunted as the biggest deal on ZSE only lasted for about 18 months. However, irreconcilable differences between Mr Chanakira and Mr Moxon led to the proposed demerger with the two companies to relist separately.
Demerger negotiations took a new twist last month when Kingdom unilaterally issued a statement that the financial services group had discharged its obligations by transferring the US$22,5 million held at the RBZ back to Meikles and that they had fulfilled the required demerger conditions.
Kingdom then requested Meikles to effect the demerger.
