News
Cement Firm Surrenders Sh6bn Land to Stop KCB Auctioneers
East Africa Portland Cement Company has surrendered to KCB Bank a parcel of land that was used to secure a Sh3.3 billion loan from the lender as it seeks to stop a looming auction.
The cash-strapped cement company has been struggling to find a buyer for 2,076 acres of land in Mavoko, Machakos County, which its shareholders voted to sell in September 2019.
The land was to be sold for about Sh5.4 billion to settle the debt – which has since ballooned to Sh6.6 billion. The loan attracts Sh600 million in interest annually.
Interestingly, the property was on sale for Sh4.8 million per acre – a steep discount from an average of Sh14.8 million per acre in Athi River, according to the Hass Land Price Index.
First priority
After running out of patience, KCB reportedly threatened to auction off the company, forcing it to surrender 745 acres for disposal.
The parcel is a part of about 12,000 acres of land that EAPCC holds.
The bank, which has appointed Tysons Limited and Antidote Agencies to dispose of the property, said the first priority in purchase will be given to the occupants of the land.
The land is presently occupied by squatters who arrived in 2010 after EAPCC announced plans to sell off the land after exhausting its mining operations.
EAPCC, the producer of Blue Triangle cement and one of Kenya’s largest cement manufacturers, was founded in 1933 as a cement exporting business.
In 1956, the company started its first manufacturing plant in Athi River.
EAPCC had for a long time held the second place with a 25% control after Bamburi Cement but was dislodged by Mombasa Cement due to a financial turbulence that started in 2015 as a result of board room wars over company ownership.
Kenya Insights allows guest blogging, if you want to be published on Kenya’s most authoritative and accurate blog, have an expose, news TIPS, story angles, human interest stories, drop us an email on [email protected] or via Telegram
The Jaffer’s : How The Fuel Scandal Exposed The Sons Who Poisoned Kenya’s Fuel Tanks
THE FIXER IN THE FILE ROOM: How Parliamentary Health Committee Clerk Adan Gindicha Cleared Mediheal Hospital of Organ Harvesting Claims Despite Mounting Evidence
Report Reveals How Betika’s Empire Was Allegedly Built On Stolen Data
Nairobi Freezes Binance Accounts in Sweeping Anti-Fraud Crackdown as Global Scandal Record Haunts World’s Largest Crypto Exchange
EXCLUSIVE: Odibets Bought Stolen Data From Millions Of Kenyans
Taiwan President Cancels Trip After African Countries Close Airspace
Murkomen, Sudi and MP Fingered In Sh20 Billion Runda Land Grab
Sold, Pledged and Vanished: The Mounting Controversies Over The Saruni Apartments On Riverside Drive
Why the April 21 Flopped Protests Expose Kenya’s Rudderless Opposition
64-Year-Old KIM Faces Shutdown As Regulator Declares Its Certificates Worthless, Orders Employers To Shun Graduates
Forged Legacy: How Kaplan and Stratton’s Peter Gachuhi Is Accused of Faking a Top AG’s Will as State Claims Damning Evidence
Sold And Abandoned: How Diageo and Asahi Are Locking Kenya’s EABL Minority Shareholders Out Of East Africa’s Biggest Corporate Heist
Poison at the Pump: How Kenya’s Fuel Marking System May Be Exposing Millions to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
THE HANDSHAKE THAT BECAME A NOOSE: How Tuju’s Alleged Intimate Access to EADB’s Yeda Apopo Produced a Sh294 Million Deal With No Written Contract, and Why That Trust Destroyed an Empire
Inside Details Of Sh78 Billion Fraud in KPC’s Mombasa-Nairobi Line 5 Pipeline Project That Has Continued To Bleed The Country
How Firm Linked To Mombasa Tycoon Jaffer Was Allowed To Import Fuel At Bloated Price And Set To Make Billions In Profits From Iranian War Crisis In Kenya
THE ZAKHEM-ECOBANK MACHINE: How Kenya’s Courts Were Weaponised to Drain a State Corporation of Over KES 78 Billion
The Teflon Company: How Gulf Energy’s Insiders Built Billions on Kenya’s Fuel, and Walked Away Clean
The Debt They Would Not Pay: How Standard Group Ducked Sh50 Million In Regulatory Fee For Years, Then Called It A Witch-Hunt
The Lawyer at the Centre of Kenya’s State Machine: Eric Gumbo, the AG’s Bypassed Office, and the Half-Billion-Shilling Question
-
Business2 weeks agoWattanga Fired Over Incompetence in Tech, Insiders Say
-
Business1 week agoKenyan Motorists Stare At Possible Engine Damage And Heavy Losses As Report Confirms Substandard Fuel In Circulation
-
Business1 week agoGetting Away With It: How Kenya’s Most Politically Connected Fuel Company Gulf Energy Is Pocketing Billions While Rival Firms Face Public Wrath
-
Business6 days agoTHE FUEL CABAL: How Mohamed Jaffer, a KPC Insider, and a Ministry Official Are Alleged to Have Manufactured Kenya’s Worst Petroleum Crisis in Three Years, While Kenyans Burned
-
Business1 week agoHow Safaricom Could Sell You Out To KRA
-
News1 week agoThe Kewota Racket: How Kenya’s Female Teachers Are Being Bled Dry
-
Business1 week agoSugar Empire in the Dock: How Kibos’s Mombasa Refinery Landed 1,481 Phantom Tonnes at the Port — and Why Nine Government Agencies Are Now Watching Its Every Move
-
Investigations2 weeks agoWhy Kisumu Senator Tom Ojienda Is Suspected as the Hidden Hand Behind the Brutal Beating of Senator Godfrey Osotsi