In 2014, businessman George Kariithi opened a Sh. 250 million supermarket outlet along Nairobi’s Moi Avenue.
At the time, the businessman who is thought to be a billionaire, said in an interview that the outlet named “Karrymatt Downtown” in KTDA building would be his “first of more to come.”
“The supermarket will employ a workforce of 60 and it is funded through internal family cash,’’ said Mr Kariithi.
Four years down the line, though, George is facing the auctioneers hammer over a pile of multi million debts he owes a bank and which he has been unable to repay for a while now.
In a notice published in a local daily, the bank says that four parcels of land registered under Kei Mart Limited located in Kiambu County (Limuru, Thigio, Nguirubi) and another in Ngong will be sold at a public auction in June.
Total acreage of the land under auction is 18. Karrymart Supermarket, which opened its first and only branch on Nairobi’s Moi Avenue in 2014, last year faced a tough economic period that led to accumulation of supplier debt worth tens of millions of shillings.
The list of suppliers owed money includes a leading milk processor, millers and bakeries. Lack of stock and funds to run operations later led to the retail chain’s closure.
George Kariithi shot into the public limelight after it emerged that his company, Great Lakes Corporation, had won a joint bid with a Chinese firm to extract coal from Kitui’s Mui basin.
The basin is said to have coal deposits worth Sh. 3.4 trillion based on government estimates.
Mr Kariithi also has business interests in South Sudan, DR Congo, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
