Peter Munga Britam Deal: Former Equity Bank chairman Peter Munga got dividends worth Sh. 135 million for Britam shares he did not own. This has been revealed by a commission of inquiry that has been investigating how he acquired Britam shares owned by the Mauritius government.
According to the report, Munga earned the millions in 2016. Apparently, he convinced top officials of the Mauritius government to give up the rights to dividends to him.
“The commissioner therefore considers that NPFL had been unfairly deprived of an amount of approximately R43 million [Sh. 135.7 million] representing dividend calculated on the basis of Sh. 0.30 yield per share for the year ending 2015 in view of the fact that the completion date referred to at clause 6.2 of the special purchase agreement is well after the June 10, 2015,” the commission’s report said.
How Munga’s ‘dirty’ Britam deal left Mauritius with Sh 3.9 billion loss
After earning the dividends, Munga through his investment vehicle Plum LLP signed an agreement to buy millions of Britam shares from the government of Mauritius later on June 10, 2016. Munga was behind the secretive purchase of some 452.5 million shares of Britam Holdings from the government of Mauritius. This secretive purchase left Mauritius with a Sh. 3.9 billion loss.
This loss and Munga’s role in the deal were revealed by the Port Louis commission of inquiry which investigated the share transactions. The commission found out that the then Mauritius’ Minister of Financial Services, Good Governance and Institutional Reforms Roshi Bhadain assisted Munga in purchasing these shares at a price of Sh. 7.1 billion in 2016.
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Alarmingly, higher bids for the shares had already been issued, with two bids asking to buy the shares at Sh. 11 billion. The two bids were from South Africa’s insurance firm MMI Holdings and Absa Group. The commission established that Munga had claimed that he could match the two bids but eventually failed to do so, and instead too them at a much cheaper price. These shares had been seized by Mauritius in 2015 from its citizen Dawood Rawat. Rawat had been exposed for running a Sh. 71 billion ponzi scheme.
Munga did not stay with the shares for long after acquiring them. he sold the first batch of 104 million shares in 2017 in the open market and followed it up with the disposal of 348.5 million shares to Zurich-based multinational Swiss Re in 2018.
