DONE DEAL: Multi-Billion Simbamanyo Building officially changed to Gender & Labour House

KAMPALA, UGANDA: Former Simbamanyo building has officially been renamed Gender & Labour House, according to close sources at the Lumumba-based avenue property.

The multibillion building which is now managed by Meera Investments Ltd – a real estate arm of property mogul Sudhir Ruparelia houses the Ministry of Labor, Gender, and Social Development thus the new name.

According to trusted sources, the final works of renaming this property were concluded this week and as we report this, then Simbamanyo building can’t be traced in the town, it’s now officially known as Gender & Labour House.

Tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia was given green lights to start on the process of renaming this building by Court which declared him 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.

Genesis of Simbamanyo House Sale

It all began 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 $7.19m (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.

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).