Even the rich cry, it is said. This appeared to have been the case in mid 2021 when famed businessman and billionaire Manu Chandaria lost one of his top companies to the NCBA Bank. The company which was owned by Chandaria is known as Kaluworks Limited. It was placed under receivership over a Sh. 4.3 billion debt by the NCBA Bank.
Following the takeover, NCBA appointed a receivership manager Pongangipalli Rao, to run the company in a bid to turn it around and recover the billions owed. “Notice is given that the above company (Kaluworks) was placed under administration on May 27, 2021 by the holder of a qualifying floating charge,” the receiver manager had said in a Gazette Notice.
Problems facing Chandaria’s businesses started to emerge about three years ago when lenders started scrambling to auction off attached properties to recover millions that the businesses had guaranteed.
In November 2018, I&M Bank instructed Nairobi-based Keysian Auctioneers and debt collectors to attach a multimillion property in Nairobi that had been used to guarantee a loan for Kaluworks after the firm failed to honour its obligation to the bank. “Duly instructed by I&M Bank Limited the chargees to the above named property, (Forest View Flats, Ngara West) we shall sell by way of public auction for the recovery of $527,887 (about Sh. 53.6 million) and Sh. 233.9 million as at 25 August 2018, which amount continues to attract interest until payment in full,” one confidential letter had leaked.
Apparently, banks loaned the money to Kaluworks because Mr. Chandaria allegedly presented himself as the face of the company. Chandaria is the chairman of Comcraft Group, a conglomerate with multiple businesses across Africa and beyond of which Kaluworks is a member. The group produces steel, plastics and aluminum products in 45 countries.
List of companies, businesses, investments the late Kirubi owned
His Kenyan stable also includes Mabati Rolling Mills. In 2014, Comcraft Group was estimated to be worth about Sh. 203 billion ($2 billion). The industrialist had also been a long-serving chairman of the Kaluworks Limited board of directors.
