By Spy Uganda
Kampala: East Africa’s richest man and business mogul Sudhir Ruparelia who recently bought the swanky Simbamanyo Building, has renamed it to Gender and Labour House.
The multibillion building that is under the management of Meera Investments Ltd also a real estate arm of tycoon’s Ruparelia Group, houses the Ministry of Labor, Gender, and Social Development thus the new name.
This comes after recently Court declaring Sudhir as a rightful owner of the property following an appeal case in which the ‘now’ former owner of the building sought to stop Sudhir from taking over the property, which he bought from Equity Bank after the owner failed to clear the bank loans valued in billions.
READ ALSO: You’re Just Time Wasters: High Court Dustbins Simbamanyo Estates Appeal Case Against Equity Bank
It all begun when the two entities of Equity Bank Uganda and Equity Bank Kenya contributed money together of $3.5m and $2.5m respectively of which Simbamanyo Estates challenged saying that it only considered . (Zolpidem) 19m (Shs26.48b), hence accusing Equity Bank Uganda of conniving with Equity Bank Kenya to illegally carry business in Uganda where it has no jurisdiction.
Simbamanyo contended that it started servicing the loan but required more financing, which culminated in two additional facilities granted by Equity Bank Uganda of $1.2m (about sh4.3b) for the completion of the construction of a hotel at Mutungo, a Kampala suburb, and to take over a prior facility from Shelter Afrique hotel.
In addition, the estate company noted that Equity Bank Uganda and Kenya brokered a new deal with Bank one, a Mauritius-based bank, to lend $10m (sh36b) to it to pay the old loan with Equity Bank lenders.
READ ALSO:Â Court of Appeal Dustbins Simbamanyo Estates Case, Ordered To Cough Millions To Equity Bank
In fear of the impending adverse actions at the time, Simbamanyo says it accepted the Bank one loan offer, which was made on November 16, 2017, to bridge $10m Mauritian loan for purposes of refinancing the existing loans for a period of 24 months.
Putting the estate’s dissatisfaction aside, on August 7 and 11 this year, the bank advertised the sale of the two properties by way of public auction. The advert for sale of the mortgaged properties intended to enforce the disputed credit facility advanced on November 30, 2017.
This is how Equity Bank sold the property to Sudhir’s Meera Investments Company Limited at a whopping $5million approx. (shs18.5 billion) in an effort to recover Bank’s unpaid loan amounting to about $8.1million (approx. Shs30billion).
